Further Chronicles of Avonlea, Lucy Maud Montgomery [top ten ebook reader .TXT] 📗

up on a chair at the head of the bed, with her head resting on the pillow. The boy at the window was her half-brother; but, between Christopher Holland and Eunice Carr, not the slightest resemblance existed.

Presently the sibilant silence was broken by a low, half-strangled sob. The sick woman, who had been watching a white evening star through the cherry boughs, turned impatiently at the sound.

“I wish you’d get over that, Eunice,” she said sharply. “I don’t want any one crying over me until I’m dead; and then you’ll have plenty else to do, most likely. If it wasn’t for Christopher I wouldn’t be anyways unwilling to die. When one has had such a life as I’ve had, there isn’t much in death to be afraid of. Only, a body would like to go right off, and not die by inches, like this. ‘Tain’t fair!”

She snapped out the last sentence as if addressing some unseen, tyrannical presence; her voice, at least, had not weakened, but was as clear and incisive as ever. The boy at the window stopped whistling, and the girl silently wiped her eyes on her faded gingham apron.

Naomi drew her own hair over her lips, and kissed it.

“You’ll never have hair like that, Eunice,” she said. “It does seem most too pretty to bury, doesn’t it? Mind you see that it is fixed nice when I’m laid out. Comb it right up on my head and braid it there.”

A sound, such as might be wrung from a suffering animal, came from the girl, but at the same moment the door opened and a woman entered.

“Chris,” she said sharply, “you get right off for the cows, you lazy little scamp! You knew right well you had to go for them, and here you’ve been idling, and me looking high and low for you. Make haste now; it’s ridiculous late.”

The boy pulled in his head and scowled at his aunt, but he dared not disobey, and went out slowly with a sulky mutter.

His aunt subdued a movement, that might have developed into a sound box on his ears, with a rather frightened glance at the bed. Naomi Holland was spent and dying, but her temper was still a thing to hold in dread, and her sister-in-law did not choose to rouse it by slapping Christopher. To her and her co-nurse the spasms of rage, which the sick woman sometimes had, seemed to partake of the nature of devil possession. The last one, only three days before, had been provoked by Christopher’s complaint of some real or fancied ill-treatment from his aunt, and the latter had no mind to bring on another. She went over to the bed, and straightened the clothes.

“Sarah and I are going out to milk, Naomi, Eunice will stay with you. She can run for us if you feel another spell coming on.”

Naomi Holland looked up at her sister-in-law with something like malicious enjoyment.

“I ain’t going to have any more spells, Car’line Anne. I’m going to die to-night. But you needn’t hurry milking for that, at all. I’ll take my time.”

She liked to see the alarm that came over the other woman’s face. It was richly worth while to scare Caroline Holland like that.

“Are you feeling worse, Naomi?” asked the latter shakily. “If you are I’ll send for Charles to go for the doctor.”

“No, you won’t. What good can the doctor do me? I don’t want either his or Charles’ permission to die. You can go and milk at your ease. I won’t die till you’re done—I won’t deprive you of the pleasure of seeing me.”

Mrs. Holland shut her lips and went out of the room with a martyr-like expression. In some ways Naomi Holland was not an exacting patient, but she took her satisfaction out in the biting, malicious speeches she never failed to make. Even on her deathbed her hostility to her sister-in-law had to find vent.

Outside, at the steps, Sarah Spencer was waiting, with the milk pails over her arm. Sarah Spencer had no fixed abiding place, but was always to be found where there was illness. Her experience, and an utter lack of nerves, made her a good nurse. She was a tall, homely woman with iron gray hair and a lined face. Beside her, the trim little Caroline Anne, with her light step and round, apple-red face, looked almost girlish.

The two women walked to the barnyard, discussing Naomi in undertones as they went. The house they had left behind grew very still.

In Naomi Holland’s room the shadows were gathering. Eunice timidly bent over her mother.

“Ma, do you want the light lit?”

“No, I’m watching that star just below the big cherry bough. I’ll see it set behind the hill. I’ve seen it there, off and on, for twelve years, and now I’m taking a good-by look at it. I want you to keep still, too. I’ve got a few things to think over, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

The girl lifted herself about noiselessly and locked her hands over the bed-post. Then she laid her face down on them, biting at them silently until the marks of her teeth showed white against their red roughness.

Naomi Holland did not notice her. She was looking steadfastly at the great, pearl-like sparkle in the faint-hued sky. When it finally disappeared from her vision she struck her long, thin hands together twice, and a terrible expression came over her face for a moment. But, when she spoke, her voice was quite calm.

“You can light the candle now, Eunice. Put it up on the shelf here, where it won’t shine in my eyes. And then sit down on the foot of the bed where I can see you. I’ve got something to say to you.”

Eunice obeyed her noiselessly. As the pallid light shot up, it revealed the child plainly. She was thin and ill-formed—one shoulder being slightly higher than the other. She was dark, like her mother, but her features were irregular, and her hair fell in straggling, dim locks about her face. Her eyes were a dark brown, and over one was the slanting red scar of a birth mark.

Naomi Holland looked at her with the contempt she had never made any pretense of concealing. The girl was bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, but she had never loved her; all the mother love in her had been lavished on her son.

When Eunice had placed the candle on the shelf and drawn down the ugly blue paper blinds, shutting out the strips of violet sky where a score of glimmering points were now visible, she sat down on the foot of the bed, facing her mother.

“The door is shut, is it, Eunice?”

Eunice nodded.

“Because I don’t want Car’line or any one else peeking and harking to what I’ve got to say. She’s out milking now, and I must make the most of the chance. Eunice, I’m going to die, and…”

“Ma!”

“There now, no taking on! You knew it had to come sometime soon. I haven’t the strength to talk much, so I want you just to be quiet and listen. I ain’t feeling any pain now, so I can think and talk pretty clear. Are you listening, Eunice?”

“Yes, ma.”

“Mind you are. It’s about Christopher. It hasn’t been out of my mind since I laid down here. I’ve fought for a year to live, on his account, and it ain’t any use. I must just die and leave him, and I don’t know what he’ll do. It’s dreadful to think of.”

She paused, and struck her shrunken hand sharply against the table.

“If he was bigger and could look out for himself it wouldn’t be so bad. But he is only a little fellow, and Car’line hates him. You’ll both have to live with her until you’re grown up. She’ll put on him and abuse him. He’s like his father in some ways; he’s got a temper and he is stubborn. He’ll never get on with Car’line. Now, Eunice, I’m going to get you to promise to take my place with Christopher when I’m dead, as far as you can. You’ve got to; it’s your duty. But I want you to promise.”

“I will, ma,” whispered the girl solemnly.

“You haven’t much force—you never had. If you was smart, you could do a lot for him. But you’ll have to do your best. I want you to promise me faithfully that you’ll stand by him and protect him—that you won’t let people impose on him; that you’ll never desert him as long as he needs you, no matter what comes. Eunice, promise me this!”

In her excitement the sick woman raised herself up in the bed, and clutched the girl’s thin arm. Her eyes were blazing and two scarlet spots glowed in her thin cheeks.

Eunice’s face was white and tense. She clasped her hands as one in prayer.

“Mother, I promise it!”

Naomi relaxed her grip on the girl’s arm and sank back exhausted on the pillow. A death-like look came over her face as the excitement faded.

“My mind is easier now. But if I could only have lived another year or two! And I hate Car’line—hate her! Eunice, don’t you ever let her abuse my boy! If she did, or if you neglected him, I’d come back from my grave to you! As for the property, things will be pretty straight. I’ve seen to that. There’ll be no squabbling and doing Christopher out of his rights. He’s to have the farm as soon as he’s old enough to work it, and he’s to provide for you. And, Eunice, remember what you’ve promised!”

 

Outside, in the thickly gathering dusk, Caroline Holland and Sarah Spencer were at the dairy, straining the milk into creamers, for which Christopher was sullenly pumping water. The house was far from the road, up to which a long red lane led; across the field was the old Holland homestead where Caroline lived; her unmarried sister-in-law, Electa Holland, kept house for her while she waited on Naomi.

It was her night to go home and sleep, but Naomi’s words haunted her, although she believed they were born of pure “cantankerousness.”

“You’d better go in and look at her, Sarah,” she said, as she rinsed out the pails. “If you think I’d better stay here to-night, I will. If the woman was like anybody else a body would know what to do; but, if she thought she could scare us by saying she was going to die, she’d say it.”

When Sarah went in, the sick room was very quiet. In her opinion, Naomi was no worse than usual, and she told Caroline so; but the latter felt vaguely uneasy and concluded to stay.

Naomi was as cool and defiant as customary. She made them bring Christopher in to say good-night and had him lifted up on the bed to kiss her. Then she held him back and looked at him admiringly—at the bright curls and rosy cheeks and round, firm limbs. The boy was uncomfortable under her gaze and squirmed hastily down. Her eyes followed him greedily, as he went out. When the door closed behind him, she groaned. Sarah Spencer was startled. She had never heard Naomi Holland groan since she had come to wait on her.

“Are you feeling any worse, Naomi? Is the pain coming back?”

“No. Go and tell Car’line to give Christopher some of that grape jelly on his bread before he goes to bed. She’ll find it in the cupboard under the stairs.”

Presently the house grew very still. Caroline had dropped asleep on the sitting-room lounge, across the hall. Sarah Spencer nodded over her knitting by the table in the sick room. She had told Eunice to