Proud Lady

Across the ringing of the church bells came the whistle of the train. Mary Lavinia, standing in the doorway, watched her mother go down the walk to the gate. Mrs. Lowell's broad back, clad in black silk, her black bonnet stiffly trimmed with purple pansies, bristled with anger. She opened the gate and slammed it behind her. The wooden sidewalk echoed her heavy tread. She went down the street out of sight, without looking back.

The slow melancholy bells were still sounding, but now they stopped. Mrs. Lowell would be late to church. Mary listened, holding her breath. She heard the noise of the train. Now it whistled again, at the crossing, now it was coming into town—white puffs of smoke rose over the trees. The engine-bell clanked, and the shrill sound of escaping steam signalled its stopping.

Mary listened, but there was no cheering, though a number of people had gone to the depot to welcome the little knot of returning soldiers. She remembered the day, three years before, when the company raised in the town had marched to the train—there was plenty of cheering then. Now perhaps half a dozen of those men were coming back. The war was over, but the rest of them had been left on southern battle-fields.

Mary stood looking out at the light brilliant green of the trees in the yard. It was very quiet all around her. The house always seemed quiet when her mother was out of it, and now there was a lull after the storm. But she was breathing quickly, intent, listening, shivering a little in her light print dress. The spring sunlight had little warmth, the air was sharp, with a damp sweetness. In the silence, she heard the rustling of a paper and the sound of a slight cough, behind a closed door. Her father was there, in his office. He would have gone to meet the train, she knew, but that these were his office-hours. But she couldn't have gone—and neither could she go to church, however angry her mother might be. A light flush rose in her cheeks, as she stood expectant.

She was beautiful—tall, slender, but with broad shoulders and a straight proud way of holding herself. Her thick hair, of bright auburn, with a natural small ripple, parted in the middle, was drawn down over her ears into a heavy knot. She was dazzlingly fair, with a few freckles on her high cheek-bones, with large clear grey eyes, with scarlet, finely-cut lips. She looked mature for her twenty years and yet completely virginal, untouched, unmoved. But her face expressed very little of what she might be thinking or feeling. It was like a calm mask—there was not a line in it, there was no record to be read.

Footsteps began to echo down the wooden walk, and voices. She went into the house and shut the door. In the office she heard a chair pushed back, and as she did not want to speak to her father just then, she walked quickly and lightly out through the big bright kitchen into the garden at the back of the house, slipping on as she went a blue coat that she had taken from the hall.