Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/665

Rh Constance rose with her, and they went slowly up the stairs.

"This is his room," said Madam Burton, pausing at the east-chamber door. There was no question whether Constance was to occupy it, though no small adornments had been added to fit her needs. She stepped in, and Madam Burton followed her. Constance looked about in a recognition of it as a part of him, and the older woman's mind seemed to accompany hers, gently and with an unspoken but always reassuring commentary. There were his boyish trophies on the wall, the hunting-crop, snow-shoes, the photographs of his mates, and the big portrait of the dog that died.

"Supper will be at six," said Madam Burton, "but there's no hurry, if you'd rather lie down a while."

Then she went away, closing the door behind her, and leaving Constance, as the wife subtly felt, alone with a most dear possession: the boy whom she had never known, save through his own careless testimony. But she avoided any impulsive survey of the room, lest she should exhaust her legacy too quickly, and in half an hour she was down-stairs again, telling Madam Burton about her voyage. Then there was supper, exquisitely served in a quiet room where the light struck through the grape-vine trellis, and a little later Constance found herself sitting on the veranda with Madam Burton, conscious that the moment had come for them to talk, and, most probably, for her own justification of the dead against the tongues of men.

The place, growing old in an honored security, had a peacefulness as mellow as the foreign lands she knew. The sounds of temperate life were sweet to her. She heard the subdued clink of Mary's dishes from the kitchen, and the intermittent murmur of her voice talking to the other maid. John was pottering about the stable, going back and forth with a pail, and, she noticed, with a responsive liking, taking wistful glances at her now and then, as at something most immediate to the house. Indeed, the place, even after his years of absence, seemed haunted by the young master still.

"I must take you into the attic to-morrow," said Madam Burton, suddenly. She had thrown a white shawl about her shoulders, and now she drew the corner up over her head. So draped, she was majestic in a gentle way, and Constance, turning to answer her, felt the wonder awakened by old age that sees its road and yearns not backward.

"I want to go everywhere," she answered.

"All his little things are there," said Madam Burton. "I began to look them over a week ago. Then I thought I'd let them be till you came, and we'd do it together."

"His baby things?"

"Yes; and some he wore when he was a boy. He had a braided jacket—"

"I know. That was the time the other boys called him Mary Ann, and he came home and chopped his curls off."

Madam Burton laughed. "Yes," said she, "that was the time. I never shall forget his poor little freckled face, all over tears. He took the kitchen knife and made a slash across the braid. I have always kept the jacket. He felt so bad. I felt bad, too."

"But you took him up to town next morning," said Constance, justifyingly, "and had his hair shingled, and bought him a real boy's suit with trouser pockets."

The erring mother smiled. "Yes, I did," said she. "I made up as soon as I could."

"What else is up there?" asked Constance, softly.

"A good many of his clothes, dear. I never could seem to throw away his clothes till he grew so big they looked like other folk's. He had a little raglan. You don't know what a raglan was? They were old-fashioned even then."

"A kind of outside garment, wasn't it?"

"Yes; a queer little coat. This was checked, with lots of buttons. That was when he was a mite of a thing. And one day we walked—it's a mile beyond here—to the place where old Silas Edes took daguerreotypes. Silas never believed in newfangled things. If you mentioned photographs to him, he'd swear most distressingly."

"So you walked there—"

"Yes, my dear. Blaise had his picture taken in his raglan, and he was so proud you can't think. When we came away,