The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 31

"There are many who come--these days."

"These days?"

"People would know more than they know of things they never thought of before, Madame--these days. They would follow a bit further after the lives that have been broken off so suddenly. They are impatient because they cannot see where they have never before looked and so they come to me because I have sat, staring into those places. They will see--all of them--soon. They are going on, further, because they must know. These days they must--know!"

The great lady stood quite still.

"You have a wonderful gift--wonderful."

"It is not mine, Madame."

The great lady's eyes went about the room.

"I'll be going," she said. "It's quite late."

Her eyes took in the cheap poverty of the mended carpet and the paint-scratched walls and the dingy-threaded, plush-covered chairs.

The woman with the white hair got to her feet.

"I know what you are thinking." Her voice was low. "If I can do this for others, you think, why should I not be able to do everything for myself?

If I can tell to others, what may I not tell to myself? If I can give help to others, why can I not give help to myself?"

The silk of the great lady's dress gave out a faint rustle as she took a step back.

"No--" She murmured uncertainly.

"It is not 'No.'" The woman's voice trembled. "It is 'Yes.' It is what was going through your head--going around and around and fearing to be asked. But I will answer you. I will say that the power is not mine. It is the power that is given to me. It is not for myself. I do not want it for myself. I shall never touch it for myself, because it is meant for others. To help others and that is all."

"D'you mean you can't see things for yourself?"

The great lady was curious.

"But of course I can see. It is that which, sometimes--" The woman with the white hair broke off abruptly. "Do you know what it is to see and then to be able to do nothing--nothing? Not--one--thing--!"

"How can you?"

"I can, Madame, because that is what I am here for. It is by being nothing myself that this thing comes through me so that I can feel what other people are; what they are going to be. If I thought only of me, I would be so full of myself I could not think of anything else. It is from thinking a little bit beyond that the power first came. And now that I keep on thinking away from the nearest layer of thought, it works through me. And I can help. It is the wish of my life to help. It is what I am here for. Placed in the field. They told it to me--the voices.

Put in the field,--by them."

The great lady shrugged her shoulders.

The woman with the white hair pulled herself up very suddenly. There was a quick, convulsive movement of her hands and for a short second her eyes closed. She went to the table and caught the money between her fingers and dragged it across the red cover to her.

"I thank Madame."

The great lady walked slowly to the door.

"Good-by. Perhaps some day I'll be back."

"Perhaps--Madame. Good-by."

The great lady went out of the room and closed the door behind her. The sound of her high-heeled footsteps tapped in sharp staccato down the uncarpeted stairs, and died away into the stillness. The long-drawn creak of rusty hinges and then the m.u.f.fled thud of the front door swinging to. In the street the soft diminis.h.i.+ng whirr of a motor grew fainter and was gone.

Silence.

The woman sank into a chair and buried her face between her two shaking hands.

Shadows crept up against the uncurtained window and pressed, quivering, against the pane. Shadows came into the room and stretched themselves along the floor. Shadows reached up across the wall and over the chairs and the table. Shadows spread in a gray, moving ma.s.s over the still figure of the woman.

A young girl came quickly and silently through the curtain that part.i.tioned the room off from the kitchen.

"Maman--"

The woman did not move.

"I had not thought, Maman, that you were alone."

The woman slowly drew her face from out between her hands. She looked up uncertainly, her eyes only half open.

"Leave me, Angele."

"But, Maman, supper is ready."

"Let it wait, Angele."

The girl came over to the table and put her hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Was she then horrid, Maman?"

The woman sighed softly.

"It is not that, Angele. She was like the others. They come because they are curious. Something, perhaps, brings them here, but they do not know that. They are only curious. They do not believe. I tell them the truth.

They are shocked for a little moment. They do not believe, Angele."

"Pauvre pet.i.te Maman, you are tired."

"Non, non, Angele."

"Will you have Jean see you tired, Maman?"

The woman stared up into the girl's small, white face that was dimmed with s.h.i.+fting shadows. The woman's heavily lidded eyes met the girl's wide, dark eyes.

"Jean--"

"He will be home to eat, Maman. Soon, now, he will be home."

The woman pa.s.sed her hands again and again over her forehead and then she held them with the tips of her fingers pressed tight to her temples.