A Spinner in the Sun | Page 2

one hand holding the
end of her veil in such a way that she might quickly hide her face.
Outside the gate she paused, irresolute. At the last moment, it seemed
as if she could never enter the house again. A light snow had fallen
upon the dead garden, covering its scarred face with white. Miss
Evelina noted quickly that her garden, too, was hidden as by chiffon.
A gust of wind made her shiver--or was it the veiled garden? Nerving
herself to her necessity, she took up her satchel and went up the path as
one might walk, with bared feet, up a ladder of swords. Each step that
took her nearer the house hurt her the more, but she was not of those
who cry out when hurt. She set her lips more firmly together and
continued upon her self-appointed way.
When she reached the house, she already had the key in her uncertain
fingers. The rusty lock yielded at length and the door opened noisily.
Her heart surged painfully as she entered the musty darkness. It was so
that Miss Evelina came home, after five-and-twenty years.
The thousand noises of an empty house greeted her discordantly. A
rattling window was answered by a creaking stair, a rafter groaned

dismally, and the scurrying feet of mice pattered across a distant floor.
Fumbling in her satchel, Miss Evelina drew out a candle and a box of
matches. Presently there was light in the little house--a faint
glimmering light, which flickered, when the wind shook the walls, and
twinkled again bravely when it ceased.
She took off her wraps, and, through force of habit, pinned the
multitudinous folds of her veil to her hair, forgetting that at midnight,
and in her own house, there were none to see her face.
Then she made a fire, for the body must be warmed, though the heart is
dead, and the soul stricken dumb. She had brought with her a box
containing a small canister of tea, and she soon had ready a cup of it, so
strong that it was bitter.
With her feet upon the hearth and the single candle flickering upon the
mantel shelf, she sat in the lonely house and sipped her tea. Her
well-worn black gown clung closely to her figure, and the white chiffon
veil, thrown back, did not wholly hide her abundant hair. The horror of
one night had whitened Miss Evelina's brown hair at twenty, for the
sorrows of Youth are unmercifully keen.
"I have come back," she thought. "I have come back through that door.
I went out of it, laughing, at twenty. At forty-five, I have come back,
heart-broken, and I have lived.
"Why did I not die?" she questioned, for the thousandth time. "If there
had been a God in Heaven, surely I must have died."
The flames leaped merrily in the fireplace and the discordant noises of
the house resolved themselves into vague harmony. A cricket, safely
ensconced for the Winter in a crevice of the hearth, awoke in the
unaccustomed warmth, piping a shrill and cheery welcome, but Miss
Evelina sat abstractedly, staring into the fire.
After all, there had never been anything but happiness in the house--the
misery had been outside. Peace and quiet content had dwelt there
securely, but the memory of it brought no balm now.
As though it were yesterday, the black walnut chair, covered with
haircloth, stood primly against the wall. Miss Evelina had always hated
the chair, and here, after twenty-five years, it confronted her again. She
mused, ironically, upon the permanence of things usually considered
transient and temporary. Her mother's sewing was still upon the
marble-topped table, but the hands that held it were long since mingled

with the dust. Her own embroidery had apparently but just fallen from
the chair, and the dream that had led to its fashioning--was only a
dream, from which she awoke to enduring agony. With swift hatred,
she turned her back upon the embroidery frame, and hid her face in her
hands.
Time, as time, had ceased to exist for her. She suffered until suffering
brought its own far anodyne--the inability to sustain it further,--then
she slept, from sheer weariness. Before dawn, usually, she awoke,
sufficiently rested to suffer again. When she felt faint, she ate, scarcely
knowing what she ate, for food was as dust and ashes in her mouth.
In the bag that hung from her belt was a vial of laudanum, renewed
from time to time as she feared its strength was waning. She had been
taught that it was wicked to take one's own life, and that God was
always kind. Not having experienced the kindness, she began to doubt
the existence of God, and was immediately face to face with the idea
that it