rewarding to a writer, when not only sentences but whole paragraphs flashed into mind. My fingers began to race on the keyboard of my portable, straining to keep up with the spurt of creativity. When my back ached and my neck felt as if it were on fire, I was belatedly aware of time. My watch said half-past twelve—and I remembered now nothing had been said about any lunch.
I sniffed experimentally, decided the nose drops had helped, and got into my coat, inwardly content and still mind-bound on my morning’s work. As I went out, Maud came down the hall with a tray. Seeing that brought to my mind Miss Elizabeth’s ordeal in the night.
I asked Maud a question.
“No, miss, Miss Elizabeth ain’t exactly sick. She’s bearing up just wonderful—like she always does when there’s trouble. But I’m just taking her a little something to keep up her strength. She has to have that Miss Anne, she’s gone out, and Miss Irene—she eats with the little boy.”
“What time is the service?”
“Half-past two, miss. But there ain’t going to be many people. Just the family—and Dr. Burton from St. Anthony’s to say the words. Miss Emma always said she wanted it that way when she went.”
I would have liked to have stayed away from the house until nightfall. But an odd tweak of conscience, triggered by my unwary promise to Preston Donner, made me go straight back after lunch. The old feeling of guilt and worry made me angry with myself—Miss Elizabeth’s state of health was no matter to me. I supposeI was still conditioned by Aunt Otilda so that all elderly ladies with that air of command could pull me directly into their service once I came into their orbits.
I was only seven when I had come under Aunt Otilda’s domination. Though she had not chosen to wear the dress of the past as Miss Elizabeth did, her mind and emotions were as tightly corseted as Miss Elizabeth’s rigid body. So I had been raised by the standards and customs of a period two generations behind my own. Which, of course, had given me an excellent insight to the period I used as a writer, but it had crippled me effectively in my emotional reaction to my own peers. I did not hate Aunt Otilda—at least not consciously. But, though she was dead and I had a feeling of relief which in turn had produced a guilt, I still found it hard to break out of the pattern into which I had been so effectively fitted. So my present uneasy sense of responsibility, Aunt Otilda—Miss Elizabeth—my conditioning still held.
There was a murmur from the parlor as I entered, and the door was half ajar, so that the scent of wilting flowers was doubly strong. I hurried past to the stairs. Still, that sense of duty took me now, not back to my own room and safe removal from the Austin tribe, but down the hall to rap on Miss Elizabeth’s door.
At an answering “Come”—I was still farther back in the past.
I opened the door. “It is Erica Jansen, Miss Austin. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Was that moment of silence a rebuke to presumption? I wanted to turn and go. But I was not to escape so easily.
“Do come in.”
Miss Elizabeth stood before the old-fashioned bureau. As usual she was dressed in black, this time without any time-yellowed lace. On the tufted spread of the bed rested a toque with pinned-on black veiling, the formal mourning of the generation she had chosen as her own. She did not look around as she spoke.
“Miss Jansen.” The tone of her voice cast me back a good fifteen years into my own past. “I have, as you see, completely recovered from my—my fatigue. Completely recovered,” she repeated emphatically. “I trust you have not mentioned last night to my sister or my niece?”
So she was afraid of that?
“I have spoken to no one, Miss Austin. Nor shall I—without your wish,” I responded.
Her face was reflected in the mirror and there I saw her eyes close for an instant, her mouth tighten. Her shoulders were braced as if she
I sniffed experimentally, decided the nose drops had helped, and got into my coat, inwardly content and still mind-bound on my morning’s work. As I went out, Maud came down the hall with a tray. Seeing that brought to my mind Miss Elizabeth’s ordeal in the night.
I asked Maud a question.
“No, miss, Miss Elizabeth ain’t exactly sick. She’s bearing up just wonderful—like she always does when there’s trouble. But I’m just taking her a little something to keep up her strength. She has to have that Miss Anne, she’s gone out, and Miss Irene—she eats with the little boy.”
“What time is the service?”
“Half-past two, miss. But there ain’t going to be many people. Just the family—and Dr. Burton from St. Anthony’s to say the words. Miss Emma always said she wanted it that way when she went.”
I would have liked to have stayed away from the house until nightfall. But an odd tweak of conscience, triggered by my unwary promise to Preston Donner, made me go straight back after lunch. The old feeling of guilt and worry made me angry with myself—Miss Elizabeth’s state of health was no matter to me. I supposeI was still conditioned by Aunt Otilda so that all elderly ladies with that air of command could pull me directly into their service once I came into their orbits.
I was only seven when I had come under Aunt Otilda’s domination. Though she had not chosen to wear the dress of the past as Miss Elizabeth did, her mind and emotions were as tightly corseted as Miss Elizabeth’s rigid body. So I had been raised by the standards and customs of a period two generations behind my own. Which, of course, had given me an excellent insight to the period I used as a writer, but it had crippled me effectively in my emotional reaction to my own peers. I did not hate Aunt Otilda—at least not consciously. But, though she was dead and I had a feeling of relief which in turn had produced a guilt, I still found it hard to break out of the pattern into which I had been so effectively fitted. So my present uneasy sense of responsibility, Aunt Otilda—Miss Elizabeth—my conditioning still held.
There was a murmur from the parlor as I entered, and the door was half ajar, so that the scent of wilting flowers was doubly strong. I hurried past to the stairs. Still, that sense of duty took me now, not back to my own room and safe removal from the Austin tribe, but down the hall to rap on Miss Elizabeth’s door.
At an answering “Come”—I was still farther back in the past.
I opened the door. “It is Erica Jansen, Miss Austin. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Was that moment of silence a rebuke to presumption? I wanted to turn and go. But I was not to escape so easily.
“Do come in.”
Miss Elizabeth stood before the old-fashioned bureau. As usual she was dressed in black, this time without any time-yellowed lace. On the tufted spread of the bed rested a toque with pinned-on black veiling, the formal mourning of the generation she had chosen as her own. She did not look around as she spoke.
“Miss Jansen.” The tone of her voice cast me back a good fifteen years into my own past. “I have, as you see, completely recovered from my—my fatigue. Completely recovered,” she repeated emphatically. “I trust you have not mentioned last night to my sister or my niece?”
So she was afraid of that?
“I have spoken to no one, Miss Austin. Nor shall I—without your wish,” I responded.
Her face was reflected in the mirror and there I saw her eyes close for an instant, her mouth tighten. Her shoulders were braced as if she
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