“My soul and body!” whispered Hannah. “It’s a stroke!” She turned and padded away …
This figure on the bed did not stir. She was afraid of him — so strange, so twisted. She lifted his hand to place it nearer his body in a more easy pose and the arm was stiff. She could not move it. A dribble of saliva ran from the loose corner of his mouth and she lifted the sheet and wiped it away, sickened. “Father, Father!” she cried. But he neither saw nor heard. He was absorbed in the heavy breath he drew.
And then, as she stood there alone with him, the breathing stopped. At one instant the breath came, deep and thick, roughened, grating, like something dragging harshly over a rocky road. Then it stopped. Even as she stood, crying to him, it stopped. She waited, in terror, for it to begin again. But the strange purple faded out of his face, gravity fell upon his crooked mouth, and the twisting left his flung limbs. The body seemed to relax, to curl, to shrink. The breath was finished. She turned away and ran — ran down the stairs, calling, “Hannah, Hannah!”
The front door opened and Dr. Crabbe was there, his overcoat over his striped pajamas, his hair a fringe of tangle about his baldness. “Father’s gone — he’s gone!” She shrieked at him as though she were a little girl. “Oh, Dr. Crabbe — oh, what shall I do!” She began suddenly to cry aloud.
He lumbered up the stairs, and she followed behind him, and Hannah behind her, a frenzied procession. She could not keep from sobbing, every breath arose a sob. She felt weak with sobbing. They were by him but he had not moved. There he lay, just as she had left him, Dr. Crabbe lifted his arm. It lay limp in his grasp and he put it down gently. Hannah began to sniffle. “It was a stroke, wasn’t it, Doctor? He always kept himself starved and last night he took three helpings of my dried fig pudding and the hard sauce. I was that surprised, beside all else he’d eaten—”
Dr. Crabbe did not answer her. He did not say to Joan, “Stop sobbing, child.” He looked down into the proud dead face, seeming not to hear her. It was a proud high face, even though dead. “The old son of God,” he murmured, smiling. “He stood up in the vestry last Sunday and told them God called him, not man, and that he would die before he resigned. He was lucky — not everybody can die when life is ended.” He bent and with gentleness he touched the eyelids and closed them and laid the hands upon the breast.
But she kept on sobbing. She could not stop her sobbing.
They were all very kind, of course. They sent a great many flowers. The house was full of flowers, and on the floral pieces were little notes speaking of his “wonderful service.” “So many years,” they all chorused. Now that he had, in a manner, resigned, they were eager to praise, to appreciate. Mr. Weeks came to see her and to say uncomfortably, “I didn’t mean any harm, you know. It was just business — things getting sorta rundown — if I’d had any idea—”
She heard him listlessly, hating him. She had to watch herself all the time or she began that foolish sobbing. She wept the instant she was alone — not for him — not for him—“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Weeks—”
Dr. Crabbe telegraphed for her to Francis. He said, looking at her sharply, “You need to have someone here with you — there’s no one else.” She said, “Maybe he can’t come — he’s just new at a job — I don’t know—” She desperately wanted him to come. She needed the sense of her own beside her. But he did not come. There was no answer even to the telegram. They wouldn’t let him off, she thought dully when it was the hour for the funeral and he had not come.
She went with Hannah to the church quietly. Mrs. Winters was there first, just to see everything was right. “Wait a little, dearie,” she said. “Wait till they’re all seated.” She was so kind. But even she had said when they stood looking at him in his coffin, “If he hadn’t been so set on that South End—”
Yes, they were all kind now, when it was too late. She sat in the pew quite alone, and the preacher from Lawtonville mounted the pulpit, and before him lay the casket. He mounted eagerly and then remembered and slowed himself. But it was difficult to walk slowly today. The eagerness crept out of him, his eyes, his voice, the nervous quickness of his hands. Would he please the people, his eagerness was asking? And across the dead the people were looking at him closely, intensely. Would he please them? He began praising the dead man eagerly, fully, remembering to round his sentences, to use the metaphors he had planned. When he prayed he had a small sheet of notes before him upon the pulpit and he opened his eyes now and then to glance at them. He must make a good prayer. It was so necessary for Minnie to—
“And may we so live, O God,” he prayed fluently, glancing secretly at the bit of paper, “that at the end—”
After it was over, Netta wanted to come home with her, and Mrs. Winters said, “Now don’t stay there alone — come over to us.” They all said, “Let us know if we can do anything.” She smiled and thanked them, knowing there was nothing.
She was alone, wherever she was. It did not matter. She wanted to go away from them because underneath all their kindness she could feel their relief. Before her they were decent and grave. But they would go to their homes and look at each other and murmur, “After all, it was best — for everybody concerned.” So she went back to the house quite alone. She must not begin that sobbing again. She had begun to be sick with sobbing.
They were all very kind. Dr. Crabbe came to see her and worried her with his insistent kindness. “What are you going to do, Joan? You’ve got to do something, child!”
She had answered at first quite eagerly. “Yes, of course, Dr. Crabbe, I thought I’d go to New York and be with Frank. He has a job, and I could find something, I know.”
“Hm,” said Dr. Crabbe, staring at her with dissatisfaction. “Looks to me like you better take a good dose of castor oil. Stomach’s probably stopped working with all this — only natural. You look yellow. Have you any money?”
“Oh, yes, Dr. Crabbe,” she said hastily. She wouldn’t take money. She was proud with all her mother’s pride … “Just because my husband’s a minister is no reason why my children should wear other people’s old clothes. Never take gifts, Joan!” … Besides, she had a few dollars again in the sandalwood box, and in her father’s old purse she had found a dollar. His salary had been due next week, but of course now—“Plenty, Dr. Crabbe,” she said brightly. “Honest!” He glanced at her. “How much?” “Oh, lots! Besides, Francis is earning.” “Hm,” he said grudgingly and went away.
They had not ceased to be kind. They said, “Take your time, Joan.” But the third day the new minister and his wife came to see the parsonage. “Not to hurry you at all, Miss Richards,” he said. He was very happy in this new call. His salary would be nearly two hundred a year more. With two hundred — then his red-haired young wife called to him sharply, “George! We’ll have to ask them to repaper the dining room anyway — and do over the floors.” Joan followed them about. “Yes, there is the pantry — that door is the cellar steps — it opens the other way.” All the familiar corners of the house she had always known as instinctively as her own body she was revealing to strangers.
“Don’t know if I’ll like her,” said Hannah, grumbling when they were gone. “She looks the kind that would skimp on butter and count the eggs.” She clattered the pans in the kitchen. “Said she didn’t know if she wanted help at all except this place is bigger’n she’s used to — I’ll lay it is — she don’t look used to much in my opinion.”