Frances had waked up early that first morning. She looked round the big, low-ceilinged room, at the pictures on the walls, sheep in a snowstorm, ships at sea, religious maidens, hung with a sole aim of covering up the most badly stained places in the faded paper, at the white iron wash stand, the lame chest of drawers on which stood a quite unrelated and unattached mirror, the dusty strips of old carpets serving as rugs, at all the dinginess and shabbiness and deserted old age, and in a sort of frenzy, she began to shake Minnie.
Minnie opened her black eyes.
“Well!” she said, sleepy but good-humoured.
“Minnie, isn’t this awful!”
“The same as it always was,” she replied, slowly, “and it seems to me we can be pretty useful here.”
Frances frowned.
“To Grandma? Of course.... Only, isn’t it senseless for two healthy young women to spend their time looking after one old lady?”
“I shouldn’t call it senseless.”
“I could help much more by earning money and sending it to her,” said Frances.
“You don’t have to decide all that now,” Minnie returned, rather severely. “You can give yourself a week or so to rest—after what’s happened.”
Frankie said no more, but remained unconvinced. She made up her mind she wouldn’t stay on that farm—not for a week.
Poor Frankie! Doomed to stay there for how many weeks!
She tried in vain to think of some means of getting away. At first there were a dozen radiant vistas, possibilities of all sorts. She contemplated becoming a secretary, a writer, a doctor’s assistant, a teacher, or, as a last resort, the wife of an extraordinary man. It was a long time before she could realise of how little value she was, how undesired. She hadn’t even money for her fare to New York, and her answers to advertisements found in the city papers were always late and never regarded. She was amazed to find herself in this blind alley: her eager hands groped for some sort of outlet; she couldn’t believe that she was actually obliged to stay in Brownsville Landing.
It cannot be denied that she was a trial to the other two. She shirked her share of the housework and remained obstinately shut up in her room with her old school books. And every time they drove into the village she insisted upon stopping at the Carnegie Library and exchanging piles of books, keeping Minnie waiting an outrageous length of time. Minnie and her grandmother had each to take out cards so that she could get as many books as she could carry.
She used to cry, too, at night, and tell Minnie she couldn’t stand it. Some days she was scornful and silent, scarcely saw them except at meal times; then remorse would seize her and the next day she wouldn’t touch her books, but would work to the point of exhaustion cleaning the house. When she did bend her mind to such humble tasks she far surpassed Minnie. She was quick, thoroughgoing, altogether competent, and, when she wasn’t cross, she was a delight to the others, gay, endearing, irresistible.
They couldn’t understand, couldn’t see how her ardent spirit suffered. Her ambition, still so vague that she was not able to express it, was unintelligible to them. Sometimes she would confess to Minnie that she wanted to marry an explorer.
“Or someone like that. Someone awfully famous and yet not stuffy. Not anyone who sits down and works.”
And perhaps that same day she would say vehemently that she didn’t care a bit about getting married, ever. She wanted to be something on her own account. There wasn’t much chance now that she could be a doctor, but there were plenty of other things, useful and interesting.
Minnie often asked to be informed of the object of all the studying her sister did.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Frances would tell her, “only it’s some comfort to think I’m not slipping back.”
Minnie fitted into that life as if she had been made for it. Serious, anxious, good-tempered, she followed her grandmother about, helping her, deeply interested in the daily work. She was not very clever or skilful, but she supplied the lack of these by a great willingness. She did not suffer from any passion for perfection; she was satisfied if she could “get through” what was essential.
She assumed responsibilities. She took it upon herself to get up first and get the breakfast. Frances used to watch her, springing out of bed in the half-darkness directly the alarm clock rang, and beginning to dress without wasting time even to stretch.
And not only was she invaluable within doors, but almost at once she had taken charge of the decrepit old mare lingering on in a filthy old barn. This had formerly been Thomas Washington’s duty, but Minnie assured her grandmother that this arrangement was extravagant and that Thomas was rough. In a very few days she had learned from him all the essentials in the care of Bess, and herself assumed the work.
She had a passionate, an exaggerated love for animals; compassion rather than love; for every dumb creature she saw she felt a distressing pity and, of course, being Minnie, an anxious sense of responsibility. She was forever worried by the thought that some beast was being ill-used. She even went so far as to follow carters to make sure they weren’t cruel. She had repeated disagreements with her grandmother because the old lady wouldn’t allow Michael to usurp her chair.
Michael and the other cats had at once become her special property. She put them into the cellar at night and first thing in the morning would unbolt the door and let them out, welcoming them with a smile maternal and solicitous. They were always waiting near the door, and would come jostling in at once, uttering impatient little cries, and looking up at her with luminous and plaintive eyes. She would bend over the worn and unlovely Spotty, mother of uncounted drowned kittens, with kindly sympathy; her young son Teddy, who was still silly and charming, she treated with indulgence; but for old Michael she had a manner at once motherly and propitiating. Michael, truculent old blackguard, his thick, short coat striped like a tiger, arrogant and complacent as an old pirate chief! He never showed any affection, but a sort of shameless allegiance, knowing that from her came all his benefits. She was really very happy in this life....
Providence was always on Minnie’s side, and Providence, it would seem, was set firmly against Frankie’s worldly ambition to leave Brownsville Landing.
The poor old lady fell ill; not at all suddenly, simply one day she asked Minnie to stop at the doctor’s on her way home from the village and, if possible, fetch him with her. He came, and remained shut up with the old lady a long time. When he came out of her room, he saw neither of the girls; he had to waste his valuable time seeking them. Minnie he discovered at last in the barn, preparing the old horse for her journey back with him, and she was so concerned about this, so insistent that the doctor should perfectly understand Bess’s delicacy and nervousness, that she forgot to ask about her grandmother.
“She won’t pass a milk waggon,” she explained. “You’ll have to get out and lead her by if you happen to meet one. She’s....”
“I’ll look after your horse,” said the doctor. “It’s only a matter of six miles. I’ll send my man back with her as soon as he’s back from the blacksmith’s with my own. And now that your mind’s easy on that score, perhaps you’ll be interested to hear that your grandmother’s in a bad state.”
“Oh, what’s the matter!” she cried.
“We’ll bring her round; don’t worry,” he replied evasively, “but it won’t be in a week, or in a month. She needs care and nursing. And you’ll have to see that she doesn’t go down the stairs,” he added. “She’s not to leave that floor for the present.”
Minnie stopped long enough to see how he handled Bess, over that awful rut near the gate; then she flew upstairs.
“Grandma!” she entreated, “do tell me what’s wrong!”
But the old lady refused to discuss it.
“Don’t fret, child,” she said. “I’ll do very well.”
“But it worries me so dreadfully not to know.”
The old lady remained firm. Some obscure sense of pride informed her that it was not fitting and proper to discuss the physical body with one’s grandchild. She would only admit that her heart was not as strong as it might be....
She didn’t seem particularly ill; she sat propped up in bed, knitting, quite cheerful. It did not occur to Minnie that the poor old thing was worn out, that the organism which had worked without ceasing for seventy-five years was in need of rest—eternal rest.
She knocked vigorously on the bedroom door, which Frances insisted upon keeping locked. Frances let her in with a very bad grace, which she ignored.
“Now!” she said. “Now, we’re in for it. Poor Grandma’s sick and the doctor won’t allow her to go downstairs for months.”
They discussed it soberly, Frankie lying flat on the bed, her hands under her head, Minnie sitting beside her.
“We’ll simply have to do the best we can,” said Minnie.
Frances agreed.
“It’s dreadful for her,” she said, “when she’s always been so active.”
Minnie at once instituted a new régime, under which her grandmother received the best possible care. She waited on her devotedly, spent all her scant leisure with her; was, as usual, faultless.
At least, that was how she appeared to her sister. Frankie honestly could not see a fault in her. Except that she was sometimes a bit too diplomatic, too anxious to keep things pleasant. That is, she didn’t always tell the truth—exactly.... She was not at all abashed if she were found out; she had always the same reply.
“I thought it was for the best.”
The long, long days went by, all alike. At five o’clock the alarm clock rang. Minnie jumped up and closed the window, and lighted the lamp on the bureau while Frances, pretending to be asleep, lay watching her. The lamp-light made a little bright spot in the big shadowy room, showing Minnie like an actress in the spotlight, only quite without self-consciousness, dressing herself quickly, wishing only to be neat.
“I wish I weren’t a bit vain,” she would reflect. “Minnie’s so wonderful!”
Then Minnie would go groping her way along the black corridor, stopping always outside the old lady’s door to listen to her breathing, and, after that, there was always a long interval of silence, before she could be heard, coming up the stairs, slowly and carefully, with the tray.
She always opened the door of the darkened room quietly, so that she shouldn’t startle her grandmother, in spite of the fact that she invariably found the old lady wide awake. Then she went at once about the hated business of admitting a little light into the room with as little fresh air as possible. She had first to pull up the shade, which never would roll properly but had to be jerked up and down a number of times, then to unlock the window and prop it up with a stick while she struggled with the rusty catches and flung open the shutters. She set the tray by the bedside with the unvarying question:
“How are you this morning, Grandma?” with a sort of professional cheerfulness. “Did you have a good night?”
“Very poor, my dear,” the old lady would usually reply.
Minnie would say that she was very sorry, and after asking if there were anything else needed, would go on her way, not really at all sorry or disturbed. She had no idea what a “poor night” meant; she had never experienced one, never tried to imagine one. All her grandmother’s ailments were remote, vague and without interest for her. Her sole concern was to do her duty.
This done, she proceeded to wake Frances, and while she was dressing, got ready their own breakfast in the kitchen. Frances usually found her preparing an economical mixture of condensed milk and water for the cats, with old Michael standing at her side, looking up into her face, his pink mouth opening in a silent cry. The milk properly warmed, each animal bent its sleek little head over its familiar saucer, lapping steadily; now and then Michael looked up, licked his chops and seemed about to speak, then thought better of it and went on drinking.
Minnie was not good company at breakfast time; she was too much preoccupied with plans for the day. She had the obnoxious air of a very busy person trying to be polite. Immediately she had finished she hurried off to the stable, or to the cottage of Thomas Washington across the road, or about some other of her varied undertakings.
Thomas Washington was a highly respectable Negro who had begun life as “hired man” for their grandfather, but who had got on very well and was now a small farmer on his own account. He was always willing to assist Minnie with expert advice, but nothing further, unless it were to be suitably recompensed. Thrift had made him independent and comfortable; thrift he worshipped and practised, and it forbade him to do anything for nothing. The gratitude of a penniless Defoe was of no value to him, he didn’t care for it. Nevertheless he was of the greatest use to Minnie, because he knew how to do everything and she being so very “handy” was able to learn from his explanations. From the bedroom window Frances used to see her talking to him over his gate, or watching him as he illustrated some point of carpentry with grave gestures, and come tramping home again, in her shapeless old hat and a big apron, to work with noble cheerfulness.
Not for anything on earth would she have admitted that this cheerfulness was genuine, that it sprang from her satisfaction at finding work within her power, for the first time. At school, at home with Frances, she had, in spite of her naïve conceit, always been more or less conscious of inferiority, of being surpassed. Resolutely she covered this new satisfaction with a veil of martyrdom, made it a sort of reproach. She would never, never admit enjoying anything. Perhaps at the bottom of her queer little soul she was aware that the things she truly enjoyed were not altogether admirable—perhaps her spirit was appalled before her mind. Provided, of course, that she possessed a spirit.
Mysteries forever unsolvable, these greedy, hypocritical, obtuse little beings. Stupid, without sympathy, they none the less leave their impress on the whole world. They force us to believe that their blind and ruinous maternal passion—a perverted instinct—is a sacred and mystic thing; they hold up to us their animal jealousy of one man as “love”; complacently they reveal this little beast, which one loves with rage and disgust, and cannot resist, and they call it Woman. And perhaps it is. Perhaps those others, with hearts, with brains, with souls, are not true women, only the freaks of nature....