The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories

Again a funeral in the old house, again a crowd of mourners.  This time there was less ostentation of grief, for no one was left worth impressing.  The lakeside people gathered, as before, at the upper end of the parlor and gossiped freely.  “Miss Williams ought to have put the blond wig on her,” said Mrs. Holt.  “I am sure that is what Marian would have done for herself.  Poor Marian!  She was a good soul, after all, and really gave liberally to charity.  I wonder if she has left Miss Williams anything?”

“Of course.  She will come in for a good slice.  Who is better entitled to a legacy?”

Pertinent question!  They exchanged amused glances.  Words were superfluous, but Mrs. Holt continued: 

“I think we are pretty sure of our shanties this time; Marian was really fond of us, and had neither kith nor kin; but I, for one, am going to make sure of some memento of the famous Webster estate.”  And she deliberately opened a cabinet, lifted down a small antique teapot, and slipped it into her bag.

The others laughed noiselessly.  “That is like your humor,” said Mrs. Meeker.  Then all bent their heads reverently.  The ceremony had begun.

Two days later Miss Williams wandered restlessly up and down the hall waiting for the evening newspaper.  She made no attempt to deceive herself this time.  She thought tenderly of the dead, but she was frankly eager to learn just what position in the world her old friend’s legacy would give her.  Two or three times she had been on the point of going to a hotel; but deeply as she hated the place, the grip of the years was too strong.  She felt that she could not go until the law compelled her.

“I cannot get the capital for ten months,” she thought, “but I can get the income, or borrow; and I can live in the city, or perhaps—­But I must not think of that.”

A boy appeared at the end of the walk.  His arms were full of newspapers, and he rolled one with expert haste.  Miss Williams could contain, herself no further.  She ran down the walk.  The boy gave the paper a sudden twist and threw it to her.  She caught it and ran up-stairs to her room and locked the door.  For a moment she turned faint.  Then she shook the paper violently apart.  She had not far to search.  The will of so important a personage as Miss Webster was necessarily on the first page.  The “story” occupied a column, and the contents were set forth in the head-lines.  The head-lines read as follows: 

WILL OF MISS MARIAN WEBSTER
——­
SHE LEAVES HER VAST FORTUNE TO
CHARITY
——­
FOUR MILLIONS THE PRICE OF ETERNAL
FAME
——­
NO LEGACIES

The room whirled round the forgotten woman.  She turned sick, then cold to her marrow.  She fell limply to the floor, and crouched there with the newspaper in her hand.  After a time she spread it out on the floor and spelled through the dancing characters in the long column.  Her name was not mentioned.  Those thirty years had outweighed the devotion of more than half a lifetime.  It was the old woman’s only revenge, and she had taken it.

No tears came to Miss Williams’s relief.  She gasped occasionally.  “How could she? how could she? how could she?” her mind reiterated.  “What difference would it have made to her after she was dead?  And I—­oh God—­what will become of me?” For a time she did not think of Strowbridge.  When she did, it was to see him smiling into the eyes of Elinor Holt.  Her delusion fell from her in that hour of terrible realities.  Had she read of his engagement in the newspaper before her she would have felt no surprise.  She knew now what had brought him back to California.  Many trifles that she had not noted at the time linked themselves symmetrically together, and the chain bound the two young people.

“Fool! fool!” she exclaimed.  “But no—­thank heaven, I had that one little dream!—­the only one in forty-three years!”

The maid tapped at her door and announced dinner.  She bade her go away.  She remained on the floor, in the dark, for many hours.  The stars were bright, but the wind lashed the lake, whipped the trees against the roof.  When the night was half done she staggered to her feet.  Her limbs were cramped and numbed.  She opened the door and listened.  The lights were out, the house was still.  She limped over to the room which had been Miss Webster’s.  That too was dark.  She lighted the lamps and flooded the room with soft pink light.  She let down her hair, and with the old lady’s long scissors cut a thick fringe.  The hair fell softly, but the parting of years was obtrusive.  A bottle of gum tragacanth stood on one corner of the dressing-table, and with its contents Abby matted the unneighborly locks together.  The fringe covered her careworn brow, but her face was pallid, faded.  She knew where Miss Webster had kept her cosmetics.  A moment later an array of bottles, jars, and rouge-pots stood on the table before her.

She applied the white paint, then the red.  She darkened her eyelashes, drew the lip-salve across her pale mouth.  She arranged her soft abundant hair in a loose knot.  Then she flung off her black frock, selected a magnificent white satin dinner-gown from the wardrobe, and put it on.  The square neck was filled with lace, and it hid her skinny throat.  She put her feet into French slippers and drew long gloves up to her elbows.  Then she regarded herself in the Psyche mirror.

Her eyes glittered.  The cosmetics, in the soft pink light, were the tintings of nature and youth.  She was almost beautiful.

“That is what I might have been without aid of art had wealth been mine from the moment that care of nature’s gifts was necessary,” she said, addressing her image.  “I would not have needed paint for years yet, and when I did I should have known how to use it!  I need not have been old and worn at forty-three.  Even now—­even now—­if wealth were mine, and happiness!” She leaned forward, and pressing her finger against the glass, spoke deliberately; there was no passion in her tones:  “When that letter came twenty-five years ago offering me a home, I wish I had flouted it, although I did not have five dollars in the world.  I wish I had become a harlot—­a harlot! do you hear?  Nothing—­nothing in life can be as bad as life empty, wasted, emotionless, stagnant!  I have existed forty-three years in this great, beautiful, multiform world, and I might as well have died at birth for all that it has meant to me.  Nature gave me abundantly of her instincts.  I could have been a devoted wife, a happy mother, a gay and careless harlot!  I would have chosen the first, but failing that—­rather the last a thousand times than this!  For then I should have had some years of pleasure, excitement, knowledge—­”

She turned abruptly and started for the door, stopped, hesitated, then walked slowly to the wardrobe.  She unhooked a frock of nun’s veiling and tore out the back breadths.  She returned to the mirror and fastened the soft flowing stuff to her head with several of the dead woman’s ornamental pins.

For a few moments longer she gazed at herself, this time silently.  Her eyes had the blank look of introspection.  Then she went from the house and down to the lake.

The next day the city on the ranchos was able to assure itself comfortably that Webster Lake had had its tragedy.

Of the Tragedy it knew nothing.