Agatha Webb (6 page)

"What made Philemon carry off the prize? His good looks?"

"Yes, or his good luck. It wasn't his snap; of that you may be
sure. James Zabel had the snap, and he was her first choice, too,
but he got into some difficulty—I never knew just what it was,
but it was regarded as serious at the time—and that match was
broken off. Afterwards she married Philemon. You see, I was out of
it altogether; had never been in it, perhaps; but there were three
good years of my life in which I thought of little else than
Agatha. I admired her spirit, you see. There was something more
taking in her ways than in her beauty, wonderful as that was. She
ruled us with a rod of iron, and yet we worshipped her. I have
wondered to see her so meek of late. I never thought she would be
satisfied with a brick-floored cottage and a husband of failing
wits. But no one, to my knowledge, has ever heard a complaint from
her lips; and the dignity of her afflicted wife-hood has far
transcended the haughtiness of those days when she had but to
smile to have all the youth of Portchester at her feet."

"I suppose it was the loss of so many children that reconciled her
to a quiet life. A woman cannot close the eyes of six children,
one after the other, without some modification taking place in her
character."

"Yes, she and Philemon have been unfortunate; but she was a
splendid looking girl, boys. I never see such grand-looking women
now."

In a little one-storied cottage on the hillside a woman was
nursing a baby and talking at the same time of Agatha Webb.

"I shall never forget the night my first baby fell sick," she
faltered; "I was just out of bed myself, and having no nearer
neighbours then than now, I was all alone on the hillside, Alec
being away at sea. I was too young to know much about sickness,
but something told me that I must have help before morning or my
baby would die. Though I could just walk across the floor, I threw
a shawl around me, took my baby in my arms, and opened the door. A
blinding gust of rain blew in. A terrible storm was raging and I
had not noticed it, I was so taken up with the child.

"I could not face that gale. Indeed, I was so weak I fell on my
knees as it struck me and became dripping wet before I could drag
myself inside. The baby began to moan and everything was turning
dark before me, when I heard a strong, sweet voice cry out in the
roadway:

"'Is there room in this house for me till the storm has blown by?
I cannot see my way down the hillside.'

"With a bursting heart I looked up. A woman was standing in the
doorway, with the look of an angel in her eyes. I did not know
her, but her face was one to bring comfort to the saddest heart.
Holding up my baby, I cried:

"'My baby is dying; I tried to go for the doctor, but my knees
bent under me. Help me, as you are a mother—I—'

"I must have fallen again, for the next thing I remember I was
lying by the hearth, looking up into her face, which was bending
over me. She was white as the rag I had tied about my baby's
throat, and by the way her breast heaved she was either very much
frightened or very sorry.

"'I wish you had the help of anyone else,' said she. 'Babies
perish in my arms and wither at my breast. I cannot touch it, much
as I yearn to. But let me see its face; perhaps I can tell you
what is the matter with it.'

"I showed her the baby's face, and she bent over it, trembling
very much, almost as much indeed as myself.

"'It is very sick,' she said, 'but if you will use the remedies I
advise, I think you can save it.' And she told me what to do, and
helped me all she could; but she did not lay a finger on the
little darling, though from the way she watched it I saw that her
heart was set on his getting better. And he did; in an hour he was
sleeping peacefully, and the terrible weight was gone from my
heart and from hers. When the storm stopped, and she could leave
the house, she gave me a kiss; but the look she gave him meant
more than kisses. God must have forgotten her goodness to me that
night when He let her die so pitiable a death."

At the minister's house they were commenting upon the look of
serenity observable in her dead face.

"I have known her for thirty years," her pastor declared, "and
never before have I seen her wear a look of real peace. It is
wonderful, considering the circumstances. Do you think she was so
weary of her life's long struggle that she hailed any release from
it, even that of violence?"

A young man, a lawyer, visiting them from New York, was the only
one to answer.

"I never saw the woman you are talking about," said he, "and know
nothing of the circumstances of her death beyond what you have
told me. But from the very incongruity between her expression and
the violent nature of her death, I argue that there are depths to
this crime which have not yet been sounded."

"What depths? It is a simple case of murder followed by theft. To
be sure we do not yet know the criminal, but money was his motive;
that is clear enough."

"Are you ready to wager that that is all there is to it?"

This was a startling proposition to the minister.

"You forget my cloth," said he.

The young man smiled. "That is true. Pardon me. I was only anxious
to show how strong my conviction was against any such easy
explanation of a crime marked by such contradictory features."

Two children on the Portchester road were exchanging boyish
confidences.

"Do you know what I think about it?" asked one.

"Naw! How should I?"

"Wall, I think old Mrs. Webb got the likes of what she sent. Don't
you know she had six children once, and that she killed every one
of them?"

"Killed'em—she?"

"Yes, I heard her tell granny once all about it. She said there
was a blight on her house—I don't know what that is; but I guess
it's something big and heavy—and that it fell on every one of her
children, as fast as they came, and killed 'em."

"Then I'm glad I ben't her child."

Very different were the recollections interchanged between two
middle-aged Portchester women.

"She was drinking tea at my house when her sister Sairey came
running in with the news that the baby she had left at home wasn't
quite right. That was her first child, you know."

"Yes, yes, for I was with her when that baby came," broke in the
other, "and such joy as she showed when they told her it was alive
and well I never saw. I do not know why she didn't expect it to be
alive, but she didn't, and her happiness was just wonderful to
see."

"Well, she didn't enjoy it long. The poor little fellow died
young. But I was telling you of the night when she first heard he
was ailing. Philemon had been telling a good story, and we were
all laughing, when Sairey came in. I can see Agatha now. She
always had the most brilliant eyes in the county, but that day
they were superbly dazzling. They changed, though, at the sight of
Sairey's face, and she jumped to meet her just as if she knew what
Sairey was going to say before ever a word left her lips. 'My
baby!' (I can hear her yet.) 'Something is the matter with the
baby!' And though Sairey made haste to tell her that he was only
ailing and not at all ill, she turned upon Philemon with a look
none of us ever quite understood; he changed so completely under
it, just as she had under Sairey's; and to neither did the old
happiness ever return, for the child died within a week, and when
the next came it died also, and the next, till six small innocents
lay buried in yonder old graveyard."

"I know; and sad enough it was too, especially as she and Philemon
were both fond of children. Well, well, the ways of Providence are
past rinding out! And now she is gone and Philemon—"

"Ah, he'll follow her soon; he can't live without Agatha."

Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six
gravestones raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead
infants. He had been sent there to choose a spot in which to lay
the mother, and was full of the shock it gave him to see that line
of little stones, telling of a past with which the good people of
Sutherlandtown found it hard to associate Philemon and Agatha
Webb.

"I'm a digger of graves," he mused, half to himself and half to
his old wife watching him from the other side of the hearthstone.
"I spend a good quarter of my time in the churchyard; but when I
saw those six little mounds, and read the inscriptions over them,
I couldn't help feeling queer. Think of this! On the first tiny
headstone I read these words:"

STEPHEN,

Son of Philemon and Agatha Webb,

Died, Aged Six Weeks.

God be merciful to me a sinner!

"Now what does that mean? Did you ever hear anyone say?"

"No," was his old wife's answer. "Perhaps she was one of those
Calvinist folks who believe babies go to hell if they are not
baptised."

"But her children were all baptised. I've been told so; some of
them before she was well out of her bed. 'God be merciful to me a
sinner!' And the chick not six weeks old! Something queer about
that, dame, if it did happen more than thirty years ago."

"What did you see over the grave of the child who was killed in
her arms by lightning?"

"This:

"'And he was not, for God took him.'"

Farmer Waite had but one word to say:

"She came to me when my Sissy had the smallpox; the only person in
town who would enter my doors. More than that; when Sissy was up
and I went to pay the doctor's bill I found it had been settled. I
did not know then who had enough money and compassion to do this
for me; now I do."

Many an act of kindness which had been secretly performed in that
town during the last twenty years came to light on that day, the
most notable of which was the sending of a certain young lad to
school and his subsequent education as a minister.

But other memories of a sweeter and more secret nature still came
up likewise, among them the following:

A young girl, who was of a very timid but deeply sensitive nature,
had been urged into an engagement with a man she did not like.
Though the conflict this occasioned her and the misery which
accompanied it were apparent to everybody, nobody stirred in her
behalf but Agatha. She went to see her, and, though it was within
a fortnight of the wedding, she did not hesitate to advise the
girl to give him up, and when the poor child said she lacked the
courage, Agatha herself went to the man and urged him into a
display of generosity which saved the poor, timid thing from a
life of misery. They say this was no easy task for Agatha, and
that the man was sullen for a year. But the girl's gratitude was
boundless.

Of her daring, which was always on the side of right and justice,
the stories were numerous; so were the accounts, mostly among the
women, of her rare tenderness and sympathy for the weak and the
erring. Never was a man talked to as she talked to Jake Cobleigh
the evening after he struck his mother, and if she had been in
town on the day when Clarissa Mayhew ran away with that
Philadelphia adventurer many said it would never have happened,
for no girl could stand the admonition, or resist the pleading, of
this childless mother.

It was reserved for Mr. Halliday and Mr. Sutherland to talk of her
mental qualities. Her character was so marked and her manner so
simple that few gave attention to the intellect that was the real
basis of her power. The two mentioned gentlemen, however,
appreciated her to the full, and it was while listening to their
remarks that Frederick was suddenly startled by some one saying to
him:

"You are the only person in town who have nothing to say about
Agatha Webb. Didn't you ever exchange any words with her?—for I
can hardly believe you could have met her eye to eye without
having some remark to make about her beauty or her influence."

The speaker was Agnes Halliday, who had come in with her father
for a social chat. She was one of Frederick's earliest playmates,
but one with whom he had never assimilated and who did not like
him. He knew this, as did everyone else in town, and it was with
some hesitation he turned to answer her.

"I have but one recollection," he began, and for the moment got no
farther, for in turning his head to address his young guest he had
allowed his gaze to wander through the open window by which she
sat, into the garden beyond, where Amabel could be seen picking
flowers. As he spoke, Amabel lifted her face with one of her
suggestive looks. She had doubtless heard Miss Halliday's remark.

Recovering himself with an effort, he repeated his words: "I have
but one recollection of Mrs. Webb that I can give you. Years ago
when I was a lad I was playing on the green with several other
boys. We had had some dispute about a lost ball, and I was
swearing angrily and loud when I suddenly perceived before me the
tall form and compassionate face of Mrs. Webb. She was dressed in
her usual simple way, and had a basket on her arm, but she looked
so superior to any other woman I had ever met that I did not know
whether to hide my face in her skirts or to follow my first
impulse and run away. She saw the emotion she had aroused, and
lifting up my face by the chin, she said: 'Little boy, I have
buried six children, all of them younger than you, and now my
husband and myself live alone. Often and often have I wished that
one at least of these darling infants might have been spared us.
But had God given me the choice of having them die young and
innocent, or of growing up to swear as I have heard you to-day, I
should have prayed God to take them, as He did. You have a mother.
Do not break her heart by taking in vain the name of the God she
reveres.' And with that she kissed me, and, strange as it may seem
to you, in whatever folly or wickedness I have indulged, I have
never made use of an oath from that day to this—and I thank God
for it."