CHAPTER XXXI
A LETTER TO GOD
"Do you keep a light burning in the Lair?" McLean turned to ask,forgetting for the moment that it was not their domicile, but his.
"No, there's no light," replied Corp, equally forgetful, but even as hespoke he stopped so suddenly that Elspeth struck against him. For he hadseen a light. "This is queer!" he cried, and both he and Gavinia fellback in consternation. McLean pushed forward alone, and was back in atrice, with a new expression on his face. "Are you playing some trick onme?" he demanded suspiciously of Tommy. "There is some one there; Ialmost ran against a pair of blazing eyes."
"But there's nobody; there can be nobody there," answered Tommy, in abewilderment that was obviously unfeigned, "unless--unless--" He lookedat Corp, and the eyes of both finished the sentence. The desolate sceneat Double Dykes, which the meeting with McLean and Miss Ailie had drivenfrom their minds, again confronted them, and they seemed once more tohear the whimpering of the Painted Lady's door.
"Unless what?" asked the man, impatiently, but still the two boys onlystared at each other. "The Den's no mous the night," said Corp at last,in a low voice, and his unspoken fears spread to the womankind, so thatMiss Ailie shuddered and Elspeth gripped Tommy with both hands andGavinia whispered, "Let's away hame, we can come back in the daylight."
But McLean chafed and pressed upward, and next moment a girl's voice washeard, crying: "It is no business of yours; I won't let you touch her."
"Grizel!" exclaimed Tommy and his crew, simultaneously, and they had nomore fear until they were inside the Lair. What they saw had best bedescribed very briefly. A fire was burning in a corner of the Lair, andin front of it, partly covered with a sheet, lay the Painted Lady, dead.Grizel stood beside the body guarding it, her hands clenched, her eyesvery strange. "You sha'n't touch her!" she cried, passionately, andrepeated it many times, as if she had lost the power to leave off, butCorp crept past her and raised the coverlet.
"She's straikit!" he shouted. "Did you do it yoursel', Grizel? Godbehears, she did it hersel'!"
A very long silence it seemed to be after that.
Miss Ailie would have taken the motherless girl to her arms, but first,at Corp's discovery, she had drawn back in uncontrollable repulsion, andGrizel, about to go to her, saw it, and turned from her to Tommy. Hereyes rested on him beseechingly, with a look he saw only once again inthem until she was a woman, but his first thought was not for Grizel.Elspeth was clinging to him, terrified and sobbing, and he cried to her,"Shut your een," and then led her tenderly away. He was always good toElspeth.
* * * * *
There was no lack of sympathy with Grizel when the news spread throughthe town, and unshod men with their gallowses hanging down, and womenbuttoning as they ran, hurried to the Den. But to all the questions putto her and to all the kindly offers made, as the body was carried toDouble Dykes, she only rocked her arms, crying, "I don't want anythingto eat. I shall stay all night beside her. I am not frightened at mymamma. I won't tell you why she was in the Den. I am not sure how longshe has been dead. Oh, what do these little things matter?"
The great thing was that her mamma should be buried in the cemetery, andnot in unconsecrated ground with a stake through her as the boys hadpredicted, and it was only after she was promised this that Grizel toldher little tale. She had feared for a long time that her mamma was dyingof consumption, but she told no one, because everybody was against herand her mamma. Her mamma never knew that she was dying, and sometimesshe used to get so much better that Grizel hoped she would live a longtime, but that hope never lasted long. The reason she sat so much withBallingall was just to find out what doctors did to dying people to makethem live a little longer, and she watched his straiking to be able todo it to her mamma when the time came. She was sure none of the womenwould consent to straik her mamma. On the previous night, she could notsay at what hour, she had been awakened by a cold wind, and so she knewthat the door was open. She put out her hand in the darkness and foundthat her mamma was not beside her. It had happened before, and she wasnot frightened. She had hidden the key of the door that night and naileddown the window, but her mamma had found the key. Grizel rose, lit thelamp, and, having dressed hurriedly, set off with wraps to the Den. Hermamma was generally as sensible as anybody in Thrums, but sometimes shehad shaking fits, and after them she thought it was the time of longago. Then she went to the Den to meet a man who had promised, she said,to be there, but he never came, and before daybreak Grizel could usuallyinduce her to return home. Latterly she had persuaded her mamma to waitfor him in the old Lair, because it was less cold there, and she had gother to do this last night. Her mamma did not seem very unwell, but shefell asleep, and she died sleeping, and then Grizel went back to DoubleDykes for linen and straiked her.
Some say in Thrums that a spade was found in the Lair, but that is onlythe growth of later years. Grizel had done all she could do, andthrough the long Saturday she sat by the side of the body, helpless andunable to cry. She knew that it could not remain there much longer, butevery time she rose to go and confess, fear of the indignities to whichthe body of her darling mamma might be subjected pulled her back. Theboys had spoken idly, but hunted Grizel, who knew so much less and somuch more than any of them, believed it all.
It was she who had stood so near Gavinia in the ruined house. She hadonly gone there to listen to human voices. When she discovered from thetalk of her friends that she had left a light burning at Double Dykesand the door open, fear of the suspicions this might give rise to hadsent her to the house on the heels of the two boys, and it was she whohad stolen past them in the mist to put out the light and lock the door.Then she had returned to her mamma's side.
The doctor was among the listeners, almost the only dry-eyed one, but hewas not dry-eyed because he felt the artless story least. Again andagain he rose from his chair restlessly, and Grizel thought he scowledat her when he was really scowling at himself; as soon as she hadfinished he cleared the room brusquely of all intruders, and then heturned on her passionately.
"Think shame of yoursel'," he thundered, "for keeping me in the dark,"and of course she took his words literally, though their full meaningwas, "I shall scorn myself from this hour for not having won the poorchild's confidence."
Oh, he was a hard man, Grizel thought, the hardest of them all. But shewas used to standing up to hard men, and she answered, defiantly: "I didmean to tell you, that day you sent me with the bottle to Ballingall, Iwas waiting at the surgery door to tell you, but you were cruel, yousaid I was a thief, and then how could I tell you?"
This, too, struck home, and the doctor winced, but what he said was,"You fooled me for a whole week, and the town knows it; do you think Ican forgive you for that?"
"I don't care whether you forgive me," replied Grizel at once.
"Nor do I care whether you care," he rapped out, all the time wishing hecould strike himself; "but I'm the doctor of this place, and when yourmother was ill you should have come straight to me. What had I done thatyou should be afraid of me?"
"I am not afraid of you," she replied, "I am not afraid of anyone, butmamma was afraid of you because she knew you had said cruel things abouther, and I thought--I won't tell you what I thought." But with a littlepressing she changed her mind and told him. "I was not sure whether youwould come to see her, though I asked you, and if you came I knew youwould tell her she was dying, and that would have made her scream. Andthat is not all, I thought you might tell her that she would be buriedwith a stake through her--"
"Oh, these blackguard laddies!" cried McQueen, clenching his fists.
"And so I dared not tell you," Grizel concluded calmly; "I am notfrightened at you, but I was frightened you would hurt my dear darlingmamma," and she went and stood defiantly between him and her mother.
The doctor moved up and down the room, crying, "How did I not know ofthis, why was I not told?" and he knew that the fault had been his own,and so was furious wh
en Grizel told him so.
"Yes, it is," she insisted, "you knew mamma was an unhappy lady, andthat the people shouted things against her and terrified her; and youmust have known, for everybody knew, that she was sometimes silly andwandered about all night, and you are a big strong man, and so youshould have been sorry for her; and if you had been sorry you would havecome to see her and been kind to her, and then you would have found itall out."
"Have done, lassie!" he said, half angrily, half beseechingly, but shedid not understand that he was suffering, and she went on, relentlessly:"And you knew that bad men used to come to see her at night--they havenot come for a long time--but you never tried to stop their coming, andI could have stopped it if I had known they were bad; but I did not knowat first, and I was only a little girl, and you should have told me."
"Have done!" It was all that he could say, for like many he had heard ofmen visiting the Painted Lady by stealth, and he had only wondered, withother gossips, who they were.
He crossed again to the side of the dead woman, "And Ballingall's wasthe only corpse you ever saw straiked?" he said in wonder, she had doneher work so well. But he was not doubting her; he knew already that thisgirl was clothed in truthfulness.
"Was it you that kept this house so clean?" he asked, almost irritably,for he himself was the one undusted, neglected-looking thing in it, andhe was suddenly conscious of his frayed wristband and of buttons hangingby a thread.
"Yes."
"What age are you?"
"I think I am thirteen."
He looked long at her, vindictively she thought, but he was onlypicturing the probable future of a painted lady's child, and he saidmournfully to himself, "Ay, it does not even end here; and that's thecrowning pity of it." But Grizel only heard him say, "Poor thing!" andshe bridled immediately.
"I won't let you pity me," she cried.
"You dour brat!" he retorted. "But you need not think you are to haveeverything your own way still. I must get some Monypenny woman to takeyou till the funeral is over, and after that--"
"I won't go," said Grizel, determinedly, "I shall stay with mamma tillshe is buried."
He was not accustomed to contradiction, and he stamped his foot. "Youshall do as you are told," he said.
"I won't!" replied Grizel, and she also stamped her foot.
"Very well, then, you thrawn tid, but at any rate I'll send in a womanto sleep with you."
"I want no one. Do you think I am afraid?"
"I think you will be afraid when you wake up in the darkness, and findyourself alone with--with it."
"I sha'n't, I shall remember at once that she is to be buried nicely inthe cemetery, and that will make me happy."
"You unnatural--"
"Besides, I sha'n't sleep, I have something to do."
His curiosity again got the better of the doctor. "What can you have todo at such a time?" he demanded, and her reply surprised him:
"I am to make a dress."
"You!"
"I have made them before now," she said indignantly.
"But at such a time!"
"It is a black dress," she cried, "I don't have one, I am to make itout of mamma's."
He said nothing for some time, then "When did you think of this?"
"I thought of it weeks ago, I bought crape at the corner shop to beready, and--"
She thought he was looking at her in horror, and stopped abruptly. "Idon't care what you think," she said.
"What I do think," he retorted, taking up his hat, "is, that you are amost exasperating lassie. If I bide here another minute I believe you'llget round me."
"I don't want to get round you."
"Then what makes you say such things? I question if I'll get an hour'ssleep to-night for thinking of you!"
"I don't want you to think of me!"
He groaned. "What could an untidy, hardened old single man like me dowith you in his house?" he said. "Oh, you little limmer, to put such athought into my head."
"I never did!" she exclaimed, indignantly.
"It began, I do believe it began," he sighed, "the first time I saw youeasying Ballingall's pillows."
"What began?"
"You brat, you wilful brat, don't pretend ignorance. You set a trap tocatch me, and--"
"Oh!" cried Grizel, and she opened the door quickly. "Go away, youhorrid man," she said.
He liked her the more for this regal action, and therefore it enragedhim. Sheer anxiety lest he should succumb to her on the spot was whatmade him bluster as he strode off, and "That brat of a Grizel," or "ThePainted Lady's most unbearable lassie," or "The dour little besom" washis way of referring to her in company for days, but if any one agreedwith him he roared "Don't be a fool, man, she's a wonder, she's adelight," or "You have a dozen yourself, Janet, but I wouldna neiferGrizel for the lot of them." And it was he, still denouncing her so longas he was contradicted, who persuaded the Auld Licht Minister toofficiate at the funeral. Then he said to himself, "And now I wash myhands of her, I have done all that can be expected of me." He toldhimself this a great many times as if it were a medicine that must betaken frequently, and Grizel heard from Tommy, with whom she had somestrange conversations, that he was going about denouncing her "up hilland down dale." But she did not care, she was so--so happy. For a holewas dug for the Painted Lady in the cemetery, just as if she had been agood woman, and Mr. Dishart conducted the service in Double Dykes beforethe removal of the body, nor did he say one word that could hurt Grizel,perhaps because his wife had drawn a promise from him. A large gatheringof men followed the coffin, three of them because, as yon may remember,Grizel had dared them to stay away, but all the others out of sympathywith a motherless child who, as the procession started, rocked her armsin delight because her mamma was being buried respectably.
Being a woman, she could not attend the funeral, and so the chiefmourner was Tommy, as you could see by the position he took at thegrave, and by the white bands Grizel had sewn on his sleeves. He waslooking very important, as if he had something remarkable in prospect,but little attention was given him until the cords were dropped into thegrave, and a prayer offered up, when he pulled Mr. Dishart's coat andmuttered something about a paper. Those who had been making ready todepart swung round again, and the minister told him if he had anythingto say to speak out.
"It's a paper," Tommy said, nervous yet elated, and addressing all,"that Grizel put in the coffin. She told me to tell you about it whenthe cords fell on the lid."
"What sort of a paper?" asked Mr. Dishart, frowning.
"It's--it's a letter to God," Tommy gasped.
Nothing was to be heard except the shovelling of earth into the grave."Hold your spade, John," the minister said to the gravedigger, and theneven that sound stopped. "Go on," Mr. Dishart signed to the boy.
"Grizel doesna believe her mother has much chance of getting to heaven,"Tommy said, "and she wrote the letter to God, so that when he opens thecoffins on the last day he will find it and read about them."
"About whom?" asked the stern minister.
"About Grizel's father, for one. She doesna know his name, but thePainted Lady wore a locket wi' a picture of him on her breast, and it'sburied wi' her, and Grizel told God to look at it so as to know him. Shethinks her mother will be damned for having her, and that it winna befair unless God damns her father too."
"Go on," said Mr. Dishart.
"There was three Thrums men--I think they were gentlemen--" Tommycontinued, almost blithely, "that used to visit the Painted Lady in thenight time afore she took ill. They wanted Grizel to promise no to tellabout their going to Double Dykes, and she promised because she was owerinnocent to know what they went for--but their names are in the letter."
A movement in the crowd was checked by the minister's uplifted arm. "Goon," he cried.
"She wouldna tell me who they were, because it would have beenbreaking her promise," said Tommy, "but"--he looked around himinquisitively--"but they're here at the funeral."
The mourners were looking sideways at each other, some breathing hard,but none dared to speak before the minister. He stood for a long time indoubt, but at last he signed to John to proceed with the filling in ofthe grave. Contrary to custom all remained. Not until the grave wasagain level with the sward did Mr. Dishart speak, and then it was with agesture that appalled his hearers. "This grave," he said, raising hisarm, "is locked till the day of judgment."
Leaving him standing there, a threatening figure, they broke into groupsand dispersed, walking slowly at first, and then fast, to tell theirwives.