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Title: A Death in the Country
   [From Bent's 1937 collection
   Thirteen O'Clock: Stories of Several Worlds]
Author: Bent, Stephen Vincent (1898-1943)
Date of first publication: 1937
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937
Date first posted: 11 August 2011
Date last updated: 11 August 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #834

This ebook was produced by
Barbara Watson, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






A DEATH IN THE COUNTRY

by Stephen Vincent Bent


After the years, Tom Carroll was going back to Waynesville--to stand by
a kinswoman's grave, in the country of his youth. The names of the
small, familiar stations were knots on a thread that led back into the
darkness of childhood. He was glad Claire had not come. She hated death
and memories. She hated cramped, local trains that smelled of green
plush and cinders. Most of all she would hate Waynesville, even in
mid-September and the grave light of afternoon.

Well, he wasn't looking forward to a pleasant time. He felt fagged and
on edge already. There was work for the active partner of Norman,
Buckstone, and Carroll in his brief-case, but he could not get down to
the work. Instead he remembered, from childhood, the smell of dyed cloth
and poignant, oppressive flowers, the black wisp tied on the knocker,
the people coming to the door. The house was full of a menace--full of a
secret--there were incomprehensible phrases, said in a murmur, and a man
in black gloves who came, and a strangeness behind a shut door. Run out
and play, run out and play; but there was no right way to play any
more--even out in the yard you could smell the sweet, overpowering
flowers--even out in the street you could see the people coming and
coming, making that little pause as they saw the black wisp. Beautiful,
they said, she looks beautiful; but the glimpse of the face was not
mother, only somebody coldly asleep. Our sister has gone to dear Jesus
. . . we shall meet on that beautiful shore . . . but the man spoke words,
and the harsh box sank into the hole, and from it nothing arose, not
even a white thing, not even silver vapor; the clay at the sides of the
hole was too yellow and thick and cold. He's too young to realize, said
a great many voices--but for months nothing was right. The world had
stopped being solid, and people's smiles were different, and mother was
Jesus's sister, and they gave her clothes away. Then, after a long time,
the place was green again and looked just like the other graves, and the
knife in your pocket was a comfort, going out there Sundays in the
street car.

Barbarous. And to-morrow would be barbarous, as well. The family met
only at funerals and weddings, now; and there had been more funerals
than weddings for the past ten years. The big Christmas tree was gone
from the house on Hessian Street--the majestic tree whose five-pointed,
sparkling star had scratched against the ceiling of heaven in the back
parlor, spreading wide its green boughs to shelter all generations and
tribes of the Pyes and Merritts and Chipmans, their wives and their
children, their menservants and their maidservants, their Noah's arks
and cigar-cases and bottles of _eau-de-cologne_. The huge tablecloth of
Thanksgiving lay folded away at the bottom of a chest--the tables now
were too small. There would never be another turkey, with a breast like
a mountainside, to fall into endless slices under the shining magic of
Uncle Melrose's knife. Aunt Louise and Aunt Emmy had been the last of
Hessian Street and, after to-morrow, there would only be Aunt Emmy and
the ghosts.

The faces around the table had been masterful and full of life. They had
been grown-up and permanent--one could not imagine them young or growing
old. Together, they made a nation; they were the earth. If one took the
trains of the morning, even as far as Bradensburg, lo, Uncle Melrose was
there, at his desk with the little brass postage-scale on top of it, as
it had been from the first. If one walked out to Mount Pleasant through
the buckeye fall, at the end there was the white gate of Cousin Edna and
the iron nigger boy with the rainstreaked face, holding out his black
hand stiffly for the buckboards that drove no more. There were princes
and dominations and thrones and powers; but what were these beside Aunt
Emmy and Cousin Millie, beside the everlasting forms of Mrs. Bache and
Mr. Beaver, of the ladies at the Women's Exchange and the man who
lighted the gas street-lamps with a long brass spike? Then, suddenly,
the earth had begun to crumble. A wind blew, a bell sounded, and they
were dispersed. There were shrunken old people, timorous and pettish,
and a small, heart-stifling town. These and the grown-up children, more
strange than strangers. But Hessian Street was over--the great tree was
down.

"And Uncle Melrose was a pompous old windbag," thought Tom Carroll. "And
yet, if he were alive, I'd be calling him 'Sir.' Oh, Claire's right--the
jungle's the jungle--she's saner than I am, always."

It was one of the many maxims Claire found in books. The family was the
jungle that you grew up in and, if you did not, somehow, break through
to light and air of your own when you were young, you died, quickly or
slowly but surely, stifled out, choked down by the overpowering
closeness of your own kin. Tom Carroll knew this much--that New York,
after Waynesville, had been like passing from the large, squabbling,
overheated room of Christmas afternoon into the anonymous peace of a
bare and windy street. He had been lonely, often--he had missed Hessian
Street and them all. But, oh the endless, intricate, unimportant
diplomacy--the feuds and the makings-up--the inflexible machine of the
Family, crushing all independence. Not again, not ever again! And yet,
here he was, on the train.

Well, nobody could say that he shirked it. He would have to take charge
when he got there, like it or not. It wouldn't be easy, straightening
everything out--he'd rather handle the Corliss case any day--but he'd
done it in other emergencies and he supposed he could do it again. After
all, who else was there? Jerry Pye? His mouth narrowed, thinking of
Jerry.

The conductor bawled the names of familiar stations, the long, autumnal
twilight began beyond the window. If only things could go smoothly just
this once! But something always cropped up--something always had to be
smoothed over and explained. _Morton Center, Morton Center!_ If Aunt
Louise had left no will--and she very probably hadn't--there'd be the
dickens of a time, securing the estate to Aunt Emmy. But it must be
done--he'd ride roughshod over Jerry Pye if necessary. _Brandy Hill!
Brandy Hill!_ . . . If only nobody would tell him to be sure and notice
Mrs. Bache! He could easily fix a pension for Aunt Emmy, but how to do
it best? She'd have to leave Hessian Street, of course. Even cutting the
old house into apartments hadn't really solved the problem. She could
get a small, comfortable, modern flat over in the new section. The
silver candlesticks were the only things Claire would have liked, but
they would go to Jerry because Jerry had always failed.

_Waynesville, next stop!_ The flowers had been wired from New York.
_Waynesville!_ We're coming in. There's an A. & P. on Main Street, and
Ellerman's Bazaar is gone. _Waynesville!_ . . . And God bless Uncle
Melrose and Aunt Louise and Aunt Emmy and all my dear relations and
friends and Spot and make me a good boy and not afraid of the dark.
_Waynesville!_

Right down the middle of Main Street the train clanged till it stopped
in front of the bald, new station. Tom Carroll sighed. It was as he had
prophesied. Jerry Pye was there to meet him.

He got off the train, and the cousins shook hands.

"Have a good trip, Tom?"

"Not bad. Real fall weather, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's a real fall. You took the limited as far as Bradensburg, I
suppose?"

"Yes, that seemed the quickest thing for me to do."

"They say she's quite a train," said Jerry Pye. "I was on her
once--three years ago, you know. Well, I thought, here's where the old
man blows himself for once. Minnie would hardly believe me when I told
her. 'Jerry Pye!' she said, 'I don't know what's come over you. You
never take me on any limiteds!' 'Well,' I said, 'maybe it is extra-fare,
but I just decided the old man could blow himself for once!' Well, you
should have seen her expression! Though I guess it wouldn't mean much
to you, at that. I guess extra-fare trains don't mean much in people's
lives when they come from New York."

"I could have taken a slower train," said Tom Carroll, carefully, "but
it wouldn't have saved any time."

This remark seemed to amuse Jerry Pye intensely. His thin, sallow
face--the face of a dyspeptic fox--gloated with mirth for an instant.
Then he sobered himself, abruptly and pointedly.

"You always were a case, Tom," he said, "always. But this is a sad
occasion."

"I didn't mean to be funny," said Tom Carroll. "Had I better get a taxi
or is that your car?"

"Oh, we've got the family mistake--a dollar down and a dollar whenever
they catch you!" Jerry Pye grinned and sobered himself again with the
automatism of a mechanical figure. "I drove up in her night before
last," he said, pointedly, as they got in. "Evans is a good man and all
that, but he's apt to figure a little close on the cars; and as long as
ours is dark blue, it'll look perfectly dignified."

"I telegraphed Aunt Emmy," said Tom Carroll and stopped. There was no
possible use in trying to explain oneself to Jerry Pye.

"Yes, indeed," said Jerry, instantly. "Aunt Emmy appreciated it very
much. Very much indeed. 'Tom's always very busy,' I told her. 'But don't
you worry, Aunt Emmy. Tom may be a big man now, but his heart's in the
right place. He'll be here.'"

"I told her," said Tom Carroll, distinctly and in spite of himself,
"that in case anything of the sort came up, she had only to--"

"Oh," said Jerry, brightly, "we all knew that. We all knew you couldn't
be expected to send one of your big cars all the way from New York to
Waynesville. How's Claire?"

"Claire was very sorry indeed not to be able to come," said Tom, his
hands gripping his knees. "We have one car," he said.

"That's just what I said," said Jerry Pye triumphantly. "I told Aunt
Emmy--'you couldn't expect Tom to take the car away from Claire--she'll
need it when he's away, shopping and seeing her friends--and naturally
she hardly knew Aunt Louise. You wait and see. She'll send handsome
flowers,' I said."

"Oh, God, make me a good boy!" prayed Tom Carroll, internally. "It can't
last more than ten minutes. Ten minutes isn't really long." He braced
himself. "How is Aunt Emmy?" he said.

Their speed instantly dropped to a respectful twenty miles an hour.

"She's wonderful," said Jerry Pye. "Simply wonderful. Of course,
Minnie's been a great help to her and then, the end was very peaceful.
Just seemed to breathe away." His voice had an obvious relish. "One
minute she was there--as bright as a button, considering
everything--and the next minute--" He shook his head.

"I'm glad," said Tom Carroll. "I mean----"

"Oh, we wouldn't have wanted her to suffer," said Jerry Pye in a shocked
voice, as if he were denying some uncouth suggestion of Tom's. "No, sir,
we wouldn't have wanted that. Now when Minnie's mother passed over--I
don't know whether I ever told you the whole story, Tom--but from the
Friday before--"

He continued, but had only come to the personal idiosyncrasies of the
first night nurse when they turned into Hessian Street.

They got out of the car. Jerry Pye was mopping his forehead, though the
day was chill. Yes, there was the black wisp on the knocker. But there
was a row of bell-pushes where the old name-plate had been. The bricks
in the sidewalk were rose-red and old and worn--the long block of quiet
houses kept its faded dignity, in spite of a sign, "Pappas' Smoke Shop,"
a sign, "The Hessian Sergeant--Tea and Antiques." The linden trees had
not perished, though their shade was thin.

"If this were a city," thought Tom Carroll, "people would have found
out by now that it was quaint and painted the doors green and had
studio-parties. Well, anyhow, that hasn't happened."

"Everyone's been very respectful," said Jerry Pye, nodding at the black
wisp. "I mean, some people might be touchy when everybody has to use the
same front-door. But Mr. Rodman came to me himself--they're the
second-floor back. Just leave your bag in the car, Tom. It won't be in
the way. I think Minnie's seen us--we figured out if you came to-day
this ought to be the train."

Tom Carroll did not repeat that he had telegraphed or that there was
only one afternoon train to Waynesville. He kissed his cousin-in-law's
flustered cheek and was kissed by her in return. Minnie was always
flustered; she had been a plump, flustered robin of a girl at her
wedding; she was unaltered now save for the dust of gray in her
abundant, unbecoming hair; they had never exchanged three words, except
on family matters; and yet, they always kissed. He wondered if Minnie,
too, ever found this circumstance strange. He should not wonder, of
course, especially now.

"How's Aunt Emmy?" said Jerry Pye, in the anxious tones of one just
returned from a long absence. "There isn't any change?"

"No, dear," said Minnie, solemnly, "she's just the same. She's
wonderful. Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Bache are with her, now. Remember--we
must all be very nice to Mrs. Bache, Cousin Tom."

"I did put a tick-tack on her window, once," said Tom Carroll,
reflectively. "But I haven't done that for a long time. Not for thirty
years."

Minnie, the robin, was shocked for a moment, but brightened.

"That's right," she said. "We must all keep up for Aunt Emmy. Now, if
you'll just go in--" She stood aside.

The spare, small, hawk-nosed figure rose from the stiff-backed chair as
Tom Carroll entered. "Good evening, Thomas. I am glad you are here,"
said the unfaltering voice. "I think you know my good neighbors, Mrs.
Bache and Mrs. Robinson."

Tom Carroll took the thin, dry, forceful hands. By God, she is
wonderful, he thought, in spite of their saying it--it's taken me years
to unlearn what she taught me, but she's remarkable. Why don't they let
her alone? _Aunt Emmy, Aunt Emmy, you have grown so small! You rapped on
my chapped knuckles with a steel thimble when I was cold; you ran me
through and through like the emery-bag in your workbox with your sharp
and piercing eyes; you let me see that you thought my father a rascal;
you made me lie and cheat because of the terror of your name--and now
you have grown small and fragile and an old woman, and there is not even
injustice left in Hessian Street._

The moment passed. Tom Carroll found himself mechanically answering Mrs.
Bache's questions while his eyes roved about the room. The conch-shell
was still on the mantelpiece, but one of the blue vases was gone. This
was the front-parlor--the room of reward and punishment, of visitors and
chill, the grandest room in the world--this room with the shabby carpet
and the huge forbidding pieces of black walnut that never could have
come in through a mortal door. What could you do with it all, what could
you do? What could be done with a conch-shell and an iron oak-leaf and a
set of yellowed pictures for a broken stereopticon? It was incredible
that civilized people should ever have cherished such things. It was
incredible that he had ever put the conch-shell to his ear and held his
breath with wonder, hearing the sea.


"It was just like another home to the Major and myself. Always," said
Mrs. Bache. "I can hear your dear grandmother now, before the Major was
taken, when he had his trouble. 'Alice, my child, you're young,' she
said. 'But, young or old, we all have to bear our cross. The Major is a
good man--he'll always be welcome in Hessian Street.' The Major never
forgot it. He was very badly treated but he never forgot a kindness. And
now, Emmy and I are the last--Emmy and I are the last."

She fumbled for her handkerchief in her vast lap.

"There, there, Mrs. Bache," said Tom Carroll, inadequately, "Grandmother
must have been a wonderful woman."

"You never even saw her," said Mrs. Bache, viciously, "Tom Carroll saw
to that. Oh, why couldn't it have been me, instead of Louise?" she said.
"I've been ready to go so long!"

Tom Carroll's face felt stiff, but he found the handkerchief. After a
moment Mrs. Bache arose, enormously yet with a curious dignity.

"Come, Sarah," she said to the dim figure in black that was Mrs.
Robinson, "It's time for us to go. I've been making a fool of myself.
Good-by, Emma. Frank will take us to the church to-morrow. Try to get
some rest."

Minnie was whispering to him that Mrs. Bache was very much broken and
that Cousin Tom must not mind. Tom Carroll whispered back at appropriate
intervals. He did not mind Mrs. Bache. But there was always so much
whispering, and it hurt one's head.

Now they were all standing in the narrow hall, and the others were
looking at him.

"We can just slip in for a minute before anyone else comes," whispered
Minnie, "I know Cousin Tom would rather--"

"Of course," said Tom Carroll. "Thank you, Cousin Minnie." He must have
been working too hard, he thought--perhaps he and Claire could go off
for a trip together when he got back. Because, after all, it was Aunt
Louise who was dead. He knew that perfectly well. And yet, until Minnie
had spoken, he hadn't been thinking about her at all.

The statue lay on the walnut bed in the partitioned room that had once
been part of the back parlor. Over the head of the bed was a cross of
dry, brittle palm-leaves tied with a purple ribbon, and a
church-calendar. Against the opposite wall was the highboy that he
remembered, with the small china slipper upon it, and above it the
ageless engraving of the great Newfoundland dog, head lifted, lying upon
the stone blocks of an English quay. "A Member of the Royal Humane
Society." There were brown spots on the margin of the engraving now, Tom
Carroll noticed. The window was a little open, but everywhere were the
massed, triumphant flowers.

A white, transparent veil lay on the face of the statue. The features
showed dimly through it, as if Aunt Louise lay in a block of ice. Tom
Carroll felt cold. Now Aunt Emmy, putting Minnie aside, went slowly to
lift the veil.

       *       *       *       *       *

Tom Carroll, waking at three o'clock in the morning in his room at the
Penniquit House, knew instantly what was in store for him. He might lie
on the hillocks of his bed as long as he liked but he would not be
allowed to sleep any more.

"You're acting like somebody on the edge of a first-class nervous
breakdown," he told himself sternly. "And yet, you haven't been working
so hard."

The last year hadn't been easy, but no year was. When times were good,
you worked hard to take advantage of them. And when they were bad, you
naturally had to work. That was how you got to be somebody, in a city.
It was something Waynesville could never understand.

He thought of their life in the city--his and Claire's--for solace. It
was cool and glittering and civilized as a cube of bright steel and
glass. He thought of the light, pleasant furniture in the apartment, the
clean, bright colors, the crisp sunlight on stone and metal, the bright,
clean, modern, expensive school where a doctor looked down the boys'
throats every morning and they had special blocks of wood to hammer
nails in, since apartments were hardly the places to hammer nails. He
thought of his office and the things on his desk and the crowded
elevators of morning and night. He thought of the crammed red moving
vans of October and the spring that bloomed before April in the
flower-shops and the clever men, putting in the new telephones. He
thought of night beside Claire, hearing the dim roar of the city till at
last the uneasy lights of the sky were quieted in the breathing-space
before dawn.

It was she who had really held their life to its pattern. She had not
let them be trapped; she had kept them free as air from the first day.
There had been times when he had weakened--he admitted it--but she had
kept her level head and never given in.

It had been that way about the old farmhouse in Connecticut and the
cooperative apartment in town. He had wanted to buy them both, at
different times. It was the Waynesville coming out in him, he supposed.
But she had demurred.

"Oh, Tom, let's not tie ourselves up yet!" she had said. "Yes, I know
it does seem silly just going on paying rent and having nothing to show
for it but a leak in the washstand. But the minute you buy places to
live in, they start to own you. You aren't free. You aren't young.
You're always worrying. Don't talk to me about just playing with a few
acres, not really farming. That was the way Grandfather started. Oh,
Tom, don't you see--we're so _right_ the way we are! Now, let's go over
it sensibly, figures and all."

And she had been right. The old farmhouse, with its lilac hedge, now
stood twenty feet away from a four-lane road; the cooperative apartment
had failed and crippled its owner-tenants. She had been precisely right.
She almost always was.

She had been entirely and unsentimentally right about her mother's
coming to live with them for six months out of the year, when that had
seemed unescapable.

"It's darling of you, Tom, but, dear old man, it never would work in the
world. We've got to be modern and intelligent about the important
things. Mother had me, and I'm devoted to her; but, when we're together
for more than a week we get on each other's nerves like the very devil.
It'll actually be a help to Hattie to have her for the winters--Hattie's
always having a fearful time with the children. And we can have her for
a long visit in the summer, and in between she can take the trips she's
always wanted to take with that terrible Mrs. Tweed. Of course, I don't
mean we ought to leave the whole financial end to Hattie and Joe. I'll
insist on our doing our share. But I do think people ought to have
_some_ independence even when they are old and not just be shipped
around from one relative to another like parcels, the way they did with
Aunt Vi! It's more than sweet of you, Tom, darling. But you see how it
is."

Tom Carroll had seen, with some relief, that they were not likely to
have Mrs. Fanshawe as a permanent addition to their household, and he
had acquiesced. Not that he disliked Mrs. Fanshawe. He got on very well
with the rather nervous little lady--which was strange, considering how
unlike she was to Claire. It struck him at times that Mrs. Fanshawe,
from what he knew of her, had never been a remarkably independent
person, and that to begin one's complete independence at the age of
sixty-seven might be something of a task. But Claire must know her
mother better than he did.

She did get on Claire's nerves and she did spoil the children--he could
see that plainly enough. But, then, her visits were seldom very long.
Claire would hardly have time to decline three or four invitations
because mother was with them for a quiet little time before something
would happen to call Mrs. Fanshawe away. And yet she seemed to like his
calling her Mother May and pretending he was jealous of Hattie and Joe
for stealing away his best girl. She'd laugh her brisk, nervous laugh
and say he'd better look out or sometime she'd take him at his word and
stay forever. And Claire would be saying, patiently, "Now, mother, are
you sure that you have your ticket? And Tom will get you some magazines
to read on the train." Afterwards Claire would say, "Oh, Tom, how can
you? But she adores it!" and he would mumble something and feel rather
pleased. Then Claire would kiss him and go to the telephone.

Only one of the visits had been in the least unfortunate. Claire had
been tired that evening, and it was a pity that the conversation had
happened to run on the future of the children. "But, of course, you and
Tom are planning to make a real home for them sometime?" Mrs. Fanshawe
had said. Well, naturally, she could hardly be expected to understand
the way he and Claire happened to feel about "homes" in the Waynesville
sense. And it had all come right the following morning--had not Mrs.
Fanshawe nervously stayed an extra two days in proof? But the evening
had carried him back to the hurt feelings of Hessian Street. Tom Carroll
was glad there had been another visit before Mrs. Fanshawe died.

She had died in the waiting room of the Auburndale Station, on her way
back to Hattie's, after a pleasant month with her old friend, Mrs.
Tweed. Even so, she had been considerate; for the station agent knew her
and got hold of the Morrises at once--there had been some mix-up about
her telegram. Later, they had found out that she had known about her
heart trouble for some time.

He had expected to take Claire on to the funeral, but Claire had been
adamant. "I will not have you do it, Tom. It'll be bad enough by myself.
But I will not have you mixed up in it--it isn't fair. We can have bad
memories separately, but I won't have us have them together." She had
grown almost hysterical about it--Claire! And so she had gone alone.

He had been very much worried till she returned, with a white changed
face that refused to give any details of those three days. "Don't ask
me, Tom. I've told you everything I can--oh, yes, everybody was kind
and they had her hymns . . . but, oh Tom, it's so terrible. Terrible.
The most barbarous, the most humiliating custom I know! I'll tell you
this right now, I'm not going to wear mourning. I don't believe in it
and I won't submit to it. All the black dresses--mother didn't really
like black. Oh, Tom, Tom, when I die don't dare wear mourning for me!"

He had got her to bed and quieted at last. But she had not been
herself--the true Claire--for months afterward, though, as soon as she
could, she had taken up the strands of their life again and woven the
pattern even more deftly and swiftly, as if each new thread were
precious and each second not to be recalled.

Naturally, then, it was only right for him to come to this death in his
own country alone. Any other course would have been a monstrous
selfishness. And yet he wished that he could go to sleep.

Perhaps, if he thought once more of that shining cube of steel and glass
that was their planned security, sleep would come. Even death in New
York was different and impersonal. Except for the very mighty, it was an
anonymous affair. The man in 10B died and, the next fall, they
redecorated the apartment for other tenants. In a month or so even the
doorman had forgotten; the newsdealer wrote another name on the morning
papers. A name dropped out of the 'phone book . . . you had moved again,
with October . . . moved to another city--the city at the sprawling edge
of town where lie the streets and avenues of the numberless, quickly
buried dead. There, too, you would be part of the crowd, and your
neighbors would be strangers, as it had been in life. Your dwelling
would be well kept-up, for that was written in the contract. No ghosts
could ever arise from that suburban earth. For this, John Merritt and
Samuel Pye had built a house in the wilderness to be a shelter and a
refuge for them and their seed to the generations of generations. It was
just.

Something cracked in the shining cube of glass and steel. The girders
crunched on one another, wrenching apart; the glass tumbled into
nothingness, falling a long way. There was nothing left but the
perplexed, forgotten spirit, roused out of long sleep at last to strive,
unprepared, against its immortal adversary.

Claire was all right, but she was afraid of death. He was all right, but
he was afraid of death. The clever people they knew were entirely right,
but most of them were deadly afraid of death.

If the life they led was rich--if it was the good life--why were they so
afraid? It was not because they so joyed in all things under the sun
that it was bitter to leave them. That was mortal and understandable,
that had always been. But this was a blinder fear.

It had not been in sorrow or remorse that Claire had grieved for her
mother. She had grieved the most because she had been afraid. And that
made Claire a monster, which she was not. But there was something in it,
all the same. He could admit it in her because he could admit it in
himself. He lay sleepless, dreading the morrow. And yet he was not a
coward so far as he knew.

They had won, but where was the victory? They had escaped from
Waynesville and Hessian Street, from Fanshawe and Pye and Merritt, but
where was the escape? If they were afraid in these years, how were they
to deal with the years to come? Tom Carroll heard the clock in the
courthouse strike five strokes. And then, when it seemed to him he could
never sleep again, he fell asleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

They drove at the slow pace down Hessian Street into Main, through the
bright, morning sunlight. Tom Carroll felt ashamed of the dreams and
waking of the night. He had never felt more solid and confident and
assured than he did now, sitting beside Aunt Emmy, his tact and his
shoulder ready for her the moment the inevitable breakdown came. Thank
God! Jerry Pye was driving his own car. Jerry muddled things so. As for
what was to come, that would merely be pathetic--the few old people
painfully come together to mourn not only one of their own but a glory
that had departed, the Waynesville of their youth. He hoped Aunt Emmy
would not notice how few they were. But she, too, was old; and the old
lived in the past. She could people the empty pews with the faces that
once had been there. It was better so. The lords of Hessian and Bounty
Streets had ruled the town with a high hand, even as they sank into
poverty, but that was ended. You had only to look along Main to see the
new names on the shop-fronts. They knew not Hessian Street, these
Caprellos and Szukalskis, but they thrived and inherited the land. Even
Waynesville was growing up--there was little charm left in it, but it
was alive. And here was the old brick church of the memories.

He helped Aunt Emmy expertly from the car, but she would not take his
arm. Well, he respected her courage. He stood tactfully to shield her
from the sight of the coffin, just being lifted down from that other,
windowless car. But before he knew it Jerry Pye was beside them.

"Aunt Emmy," said Jerry Pye incredibly, "did Aunt Louise really want old
Zenas to be one of the coffin-bearers? Because he's there now, and it'll
be too late unless somebody tells him . . ."

He actually made a gesture with his hand. Tom Carroll would have been
glad to strangle his cousin. But miraculously Aunt Emmy did not break.

She even walked past Tom Carroll to look deliberately at the six
black-suited negroes who now had their burden ready to carry into the
church. Tom Carroll looked as well. They were none of them under forty,
and their faces were grave and sober, but there was something ceremonial
in their attitude that struck Tom Carroll strangely. They were sad but
they were not constrained--they were doing something they felt to be
right and they did it naturally and with ceremony. They would remember
the ceremony always when the sadness had passed.

"Zenas, Joram, Joseph, William, Henry, Devout," said Aunt Emmy, in a
half-whisper. "Yes, that's right. That's right. Zenas should be there.
Louise would have missed Zenas. No, Tommy, we will let them pass,
please."

When the coffin had passed, to the sway of the easy shoulders, they
followed it in. It was the beginning of Tom Carroll's astonishment. The
astonishment did not lessen when he found the church half full, and not
only with the old.

He had always thought of Aunt Louise as Aunt Emmy's shadow--in his
boyhood as someone always hurried but vaguely sweet whose
peppermint-drops took away the taste of Aunt Emmy's wrath; in his
manhood as a responsibility at the back of his mind. But the minister
was a young man, and neither Pye nor Merritt, and he spoke of the Louise
Pye, whose singlehanded effort had turned the ramshackle old School For
The Instruction Of Freed Negroes into an institution model for its time,
in terms that assumed his hearers knew and appreciated the difficulties
of that task.

Phrases came to Tom Carroll's ears. They were the conventional phrases
of oratory, yet the speaker meant them. "Unsparing of time or labor."
"The rare gift of personality." "The quiet achievement of many years."
"We can say to-day, in all truth, a light has gone from among us. . . ."
But this was Aunt Louise!

And after the service, and on the way to the grave, and after the
service there, the astonishment continued. He was by Aunt Emmy's side,
and the people spoke to him. Nearly everyone who spoke to him knew his
name. They did not find it odd or kind or a favor that he should be
there--he was Julia Merritt's son, who was working in New York. You
didn't hear as much about him as you did about Jerry Pye, but it was
natural that he should return. Not only Mrs. Bache was under the
impression that he had come principally to hear the reading of Aunt
Louise's will. They did not think ill of him for it, merely prudent. He
could explain nothing, even if he had wished to. There was nothing to
explain.

He could not count the number of times he was told that the cross of
yellow roses was beautiful--did they know by telepathy that it was from
him and Claire? He had thought it garish and out of place beside the
other flowers, the late asters and first chrysanthemums, the zinnias and
snapdragons, the bronzes and reds and golds of the country fall. But
that he could not say.

The negroes who had borne the coffin knew him. They spoke to him gravely
in their rich voices when all was done. Aunt Emmy had a curious phrase
for each of them. "Thank you, Devout. Thank you, Joram. Miss Louise will
be pleased." It would seem macabre, telling it to Claire. It was not; it
was only simple. But that she would not believe.

He remembered, as if in a dream, his plans for succor and comfort when
Aunt Emmy should collapse. But it was he who felt physically exhausted
when they got back to the house.

This, too, was the moment that he had dreaded the most. Last night he
had been able to have dinner at the hotel, but this time there was no
escaping the cold meal laid in the basement dining loom, the haunted and
undue fragrance of flowers that had filled the house for a while. But,
when the food was in front of him he was hungry and ate. They all ate,
even Aunt Emmy. Minnie did what waiting was necessary and did it, for
once, without fluster. Jerry Pye seemed tired and subdued. Once Tom
Carroll caught himself feeling sorry for him, once he tried to help him
out in a story that was meant to be cheerful and fell flat.

"You know," said Minnie, in a flat voice, pouring coffee, "it seems as
if Aunt Louise hadn't gone away so far as before it happened."

Tom Carroll knew what she meant. He felt it too--that presence of the
dead, but not grimly nor as a ghost. The presence was as real as the
October sky, and as removed from flesh. It did not have to mean that all
tired souls were immortal--it had its own peace.

After the meal was over, Tom Carroll walked in the back yard and smoked
with Jerry Pye. Now and then he remembered from childhood the fear that
had walked there with him, with the scent of the overpowering flowers.
But, search as he would, he could not find that fear. The few flowers
left in the beds were bronze and scentless; there was no fear where they
bloomed.

It was time to go in for the reading of Aunt Louise's will. Tom Carroll
listened obediently. He did not even mention the names of Norman,
Buckstone, and Carroll. Once, when Mr. Dabney, the lawyer, looked at him
and said, "You are a member of the New York Bar, I believe, Mr.
Carroll?" he felt surprised at being able to say "yes."

It was a long and personal will made up of many small bequests. He could
see Aunt Louise going through her innumerable boxes, trying hard to be
fair.

"To my nephew, Thomas Carroll, and his wife, Claire Fanshawe Carroll,
the pair of silver candlesticks belonging to my dear Father."

Tom Carroll felt the slow red creeping into his face.

They shook hands with Mr. Dabney. They spoke of what was to be done. Tom
Carroll did not proffer assistance. There was no need.

Jerry Pye was offering him a lift as far as Bradensburg--Minnie would be
staying with Aunt Emmy for the next week or so, but he must get back to
work. But Tom Carroll thought he had better wait till the morning.

"Well, I guess you'll be more comfortable here at that," said Jerry Pye.
"I'll have to hit her up if I want to get home before 3 P.M. So long,
Tom. You see Minnie doesn't step out with a handsomer fellow now the old
man's away. And take care of the Pye candlesticks--at that, I guess
they'll look better in your place than they would in ours. Our kids
might use 'em for baseball bats. Say, give my best to Claire."

He was gone. "Now, Tommy," said Aunt Emmy in her tired, indomitable
voice, "you go back to the hotel and get a rest--you look tuckered out.
Nelly Jervis is coming in here to get the supper. Half-past six."

They were sitting in the front parlor again that evening, he and she. It
wasn't late, but Minnie had been sent to bed, unwilling. She wouldn't
close an eye, she said; but they knew she was already asleep.

"It's queer what a good nurse Minnie is," said Aunt Emmy reflectively.
"Seems as if it was the only thing that ever got her shut of her
fussiness--taking care of sick people. You'd think she'd drop crumbs in
the bed, but she never does. I don't know what we'd have done without
her. Well, she's a right to be tired."

"How about you, Aunt Emmy?"

"Oh," said Aunt Emmy, "they used to say there'd be some people the Fool
Killer would still be looking for on Judgment Day. I guess I'm one of
them. Of course I'm tired, Tommy. When I'm tired enough, I'll tell you
and go to bed."

"Look here, Aunt Emmy," said Tom Carroll, "if there's anything I can
do----"

"And what could you do, Tommy?"

"Well, wouldn't you like a car?" he said, awkwardly, "or somebody to
stay with you--or another place. They say those apartments over by
the----"

"I was born here," said Aunt Emmy, with a snap of her lips, "and now
Louise has gone, I've got just enough money to die here. It isn't the
same, but I'm suited. And, of all the horrors of age, deliver me from a
paid companion. If I need anything like that I'll get Susan Bache to
move in here. She's a fool and she's a tattler," said Aunt Emmy,
clearly, "but I'm used to her. And Minnie'll come up, every now and
then. Don't worry about me, Tom Carroll. We've all of us been on your
back long enough."

"On my back?" said Tom Carroll, astounded.

"Well, I'd like to know where else it was," said Aunt Emmy. "You got
Louise's money back from that rascal that bamboozled her, and I know
twice you pulled Jerry Pye out of the mudhole, and then there was
Cousin Edna all those years. Not to speak of what you did for Melrose.
Melrose was my own brother, but he ought to have been ashamed of
himself, the way he hindered you. Oh, don't you worry about Waynesville,
Tommy--you've no call. You did right to get out when you did and as you
did, and Waynesville knows it, too. Not that Waynesville would ever
admit George Washington was any great shakes, once he'd moved away. But
you wait till you die, Tom Carroll"--and she actually chuckled--"and you
see what the _Waynesville Blade_ says about her distinguished son. They
told Louise for twenty years she was crazy, teaching negroes to read
and write. But they've got two columns about her this evening and an
editorial. I've cut it out and I'm going to paste it under her picture.
Louise was always the loving one, and I never grudged her that. But I
did grudge her forgiving where I didn't see cause to forgive. But that's
all done." She rustled the paper in her lap.

"How are your boys, Tommy?" she said. "They look smart enough in their
pictures."

"We think they are," said Tom Carroll. "I hope you're right."

"They ought to be," said Aunt Emmy. "The Fanshawes never lacked
smartness, whatever else they lacked, and your father was a bright man.
Well, I've seen Jeremiah's and Minnie's. Boy and girl. Don't laugh at
me, because it doesn't seem possible, but Jeremiah makes a good father.
I never could get on with children--you ought to know that if anyone
does--but I think they'll amount to something. Well, it's time the
family was getting some sense again."

"Aunt Emmy!" said Tom Carroll, protestingly.

"Was this a happy house?" said Aunt Emmy, fiercely. "For me it
was--yes--because I grew up in it. And I always had Louise and I don't
regret anything. But was it happy for your mother and you? You know it
wasn't, and a good thing your father took her out of it, adventurer or
no adventurer, and a bad thing she had to come back. Well, we did our
duty according to our lights. But that wasn't enough. There's no real
reason, you know, why families have to get that way, except they seem
to. But they will get to thinking they're God Almighty, and, after a
while, that gets taken notice of. I'll say this--it wasn't the money
with us. We held up our heads with it or without it. But maybe we held
them too stiff."

She sank into a brooding silence. Behind her in the corner the vague
shadows of innumerable Pyes and Merritts seemed to gather and mingle and
wait. After a while she roused herself.

"Where are you going to live, Tommy?" she said.

"I've been thinking about a place in the country sometime," said Tom
Carroll. "If Waynesville were a little different----"

Aunt Emmy shook her head.

"You couldn't come back here, Tommy," she said. "It's finished here. And
that's just as well. But, if you're going to build your own house, you'd
better do it soon. You won't be happy without it--you've got too much
Merritt in you. The Merritts made their own places. It was the Pyes that
sat on the eggs till finally they tried to hatch chickens out of a
doorknob, because it was easier than looking for a new roost. But you
haven't much Pye. All the same, you won't be contented till you've got
some roots put down. The Fanshawes, they could live in a wagon and like
it, but the Bouverins were like the Merritts--when they'd rambled
enough, they cleared ground. And Claire looks a lot more Bouverin than
Fanshawe to me, whether she likes it or not."

"I didn't know you knew Claire's family," said Tom Carroll.

"She probably wouldn't tell you," said Aunt Emmy. "Well, that's natural
enough. Good Goshen! I remember Claire Fanshawe, a peaked little slip of
a child, at Anna Bouverin's funeral, just before they left Bradensburg.
The coffin was still open, and some ignoramus or other thought it would
be fitting for all the grandchildren to come and kiss their grandma
good-by. Mind you, after they'd said good by to her once already, before
she died. I could have told them better, little as I know children.
Well, it didn't make much difference to Hattie; she always had the
nerves of an ox. But Claire was just over typhoid and after they made
her do it she had what _I'd_ call a shaking chill, in a grown person.
And _yet_, they made her get up and recite the Twenty-Third Psalm in
front of everybody--just because she was smart for her age, and a little
child shall lead them. Her mother didn't stop them--too proud of her
knowing it, I guess. But that was the Fanshawe of it--they had to
play-act whatever happened."

Tom Carroll had his head in his hands.

"She never told me," he said. "She never told me at all."

"No?" said Aunt Emmy, looking at him sharply. "Well, she was young and
maybe she forgot it. I imagine Hattie did."

"Claire never has," said Tom Carroll.

"Well," said Aunt Emmy, "I'll tell you something, Tommy. When you get to
my age you've seen life and death. And there's just one thing about
death, once you start running away from the thought of it, it runs after
you. Till finally you're scared even to talk about it and, even if your
best friend dies, you'll forget him as quick as you can because the
thought's always waiting. But once you can make yourself turn around and
look at it--it's different. Oh, you can't help the grief. But you can
get a child so it isn't afraid of the dark--though if you scared it
first it'll take a longer while."

"Tell me," said Tom Carroll in a low voice, "were there--very sweet
flowers--when my mother died?"

"It was just before Easter," said Aunt Emmy softly. "You could smell the
flowers all through the house. But we didn't have any play-acting," she
added, quickly. "Not with you. Melrose had that bee in his bonnet, but
Louise put her foot down. But it's hard to explain to a child."

"It's hard to explain anyway," said Tom Carroll.

"That's true," said Aunt Emmy. "It's a queer thing," she said. "I never
smell lilac without thinking of Lucy Marshall. She was a friend of mine,
and then we fell out, and when we were young we used to play by a lilac
bush in her yard. It used to trouble me for a long time before I put the
two things together. But the pain went out of it then."

"Yes. The pain goes out when you know," said Tom Carroll. "It's not
knowing that makes you afraid."

"If Hattie was closer to her, she could do it," said Aunt Emmy. "But the
way things are----"

"It'll have to be me," said Tom Carroll. "And I don't know how."

"Well, you're fond of her," said Aunt Emmy. "They say that helps." She
rose. "I'll give you the candlesticks in the morning, Tom."

"Can't I leave them with you, Aunt Emmy?"

"What's the use?" said Aunt Emmy practically. "To tell you the truth,
Tommy, I'd got right tired of shining them. Besides, they'll look well
in your house, when you get your house."




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

The following change was made to the original text:
Page 280: 3 G.M. ==> 3 P.M.

Minor variations in spelling and punctuation have been preserved.




[End of A Death in the Country, by Stephen Vincent Bent]
