Helena stood breathing quickly; it was as if she had been smothering,
and suddenly felt free air. She was alone. The people--the terrible,
persistently friendly, suffocating people, were gone! She could draw a
full breath; she could face her own blazing fact; ... Frederick was
dead.
She was walking back and forth, staring with unseeing eyes at the
confusion of the room--chairs pulled out from their accustomed places;
two card-tables with a litter of cards and counters; the astral-lamp
burning low on the rosewood table that was cluttered with old
daguerreotypes belonging to the house. The dining-room door was ajar,
and as she passed it she had a glimpse of the empty disorder of the
room, and could hear her two women moving about, carrying off plates
and glasses and talking to each other.
"Well, I like company," she heard Sarah say. "I wish she'd have
somebody in every day."
And Maggie's harsh murmur: "You ain't got to cook for 'em." Then the
clatter of forks and spoons in the pantry.
"Seemed to me like as if she wasn't real glad to see 'em," Sarah
commented. "My! look at all this here good cake crumbled up on
somebody's plate."
"Well, a widow woman don't enjoy company," Maggie explained.
A minute later Sarah came bustling in to close the parlor windows for
the night, and started to find the room still occupied. "I thought you
had gone upstairs, ma'am," the girl stammered, wondering nervously if
she had said anything that she would not care to have overheard.
"I am going now," Mrs. Richie said, drawing a long breath, and opening
and shutting her eyes in a dazed way;--"like as if she'd been asleep
and was woke up, sudden," Sarah told Maggie later.
In her own room, the door locked, she sank down in a chair, her
clasped hands falling between her knees, her eyes staring at the
floor.
Dead.
How long he had been about dying. Thirteen years ago Lloyd had said,
"He'll drink himself to death in six months; and then--!" Well; at
least part of the programme was carried out: he drank. But he did not
die. No; he went on living, living, living! That first year they were
constantly asking each other for news of him: "Have you heard
anything?" "Yes; an awful debauch. Oh, he can't stand it. He'll be in
his grave before Christmas." But Christmas came, and Frederick was
still living. Then it was "before spring"--"before fall"--"before
Christmas" again. And yet he went on living. And she had gone on
living, too. At first, joyously, except when she brooded over the
baby's death; then impatiently--for Frederick would not die! Then,
gradually, gradually, with weary acceptance of the situation. Only in
the last two or three years had she begun to live anxiously, as she
realized how easily Lloyd was accepting Frederick's lease of life.
Less and less often he inquired whether Mr. Raynor had mentioned
Frederick's health in the letter that came with her quarterly
statement. By and by, it was she, not Lloyd, who asked, "Have you
heard anything of Frederick?"