Teeftallow/Chapter 25

THE first notice of village condemnation was served on Nessie Sutton by a little yellow-curled toddler named Jabez Anderson who lived in a cottage between the hotel and town. Jabez played out in the street under an elm tree where he had a swing. Nessie heretofore had stood high in Jabez's favour because, as she went by on her way to work, she would give him a push. On this morning, the milliner waved at the little boy from the corner, but instead of settling himself on the seat and getting ready for the big push, Jabez continued doing what he could with his short fat legs to swing himself. When Nessie eventually helped him, he called out right at the top of his swing, in the clear impersonal tones of very small children, "Mamma says you are a mess."

The milliner watched him go and return to her.

"What is it, Jabez?" she asked, smiling.

"Mamma says you are a mess—mess," he strove to make the word as distinct as possible, for he had found the English language rather treacherous.

"Mess," repeated Nessie, ceasing to smile. After a moment she recalled having sold Mrs. Anderson an autumn hat the week before; then she added aloud more to herself than to the child, "I thought your mother liked that hat."

"Mamma says you are a mess," repeated Jabez simply, and that seemed to be the extent of his information.

At that moment the mother herself appeared at the door of the cottage.

"Jabez!" she cried sharply. "Come here this minute!"

"Mrs. Anderson," called Nessie, eager to protect her em​ployer's trade, "if you don't like your new hat, I'll gladly make any change . . ."

"I like my hat well enough.—Come here, Jabez Anderson, this moment.—Will you please stop swinging him and let him out?"

Mrs. Anderson's "please" was vitriolic.

"Why, certainly!" snapped the girl, getting angry herself at this baseless attack. "Jabez said that you called me a—"

The housewife walked quickly down the path, seized the hand of her baby as it came into the gate, gave the child a shake, and rapped out in her irritation, "Now, you stay inside, Jabez, and don't be talking to strangers!"

The little boy looked around at Nessie with frightened eyes as he half trotted and was half dragged along at his mother's side.

Nessie stared at the woman, and suddenly there came to her a hint of what lay behind this extraordinary procedure. She felt a constriction in her chest as she thought in dismay, "Zed Parrum has told!" A rush of blood heated her face; an instinctive impulse to defend herself seized her.

"Mrs. Anderson," she called in a strained voice, "what is the matter? Why are you treating me this way?"

"You know!" whipped out the woman without looking back.

"But I don't! I don't!" Nessie began trembling violently.

The woman flung over her shoulder on the very lash of contempt, "You and that Abner Teeftaller . . ." and hurried to the porch.

The world seemed to sway under Nessie. She held to the palings. The blood drained out of her cheeks, leaving them cold. She broke out suddenly, "But, Mrs. Anderson! I—I didn't! Who told you? It—it's not true! Mrs. Anderson, please believe me!"

Nessie had no conception of how trivial, how insignificant Mrs. Anderson was in the village-wide condemnation. She did not realize that to regain Mrs. Anderson's confidence would be like making friends with one hornet in a nest.

​The woman opened her door, got inside, and slammed it shut.

For a half minute Nessie continued clinging to the fence. Within the brief space of this scene the day, the village, her position in society had abruptly shifted about. A terrible sensation of nightmare fell upon her. Zed had told! She recalled her terrifying persistent dream of passing through an open door only to have it vanish behind her.

For the first time she realized that she was what the village called an "unchaste woman." She really was one. And the tragedy of it was, she seemed to herself to be precisely as she had always been. There was not a straw’s difference between Nessie Sutton pure and Nessie Sutton impure. Oh, if the village only could know that she was exactly the same!

She turned away and moved mechanically along the shabby street with a beating heart. She got out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes covertly, and a little later dabbed her cheeks with her powder puff to remove the stain. She tried to walk on down to the Grand in a natural manner, but as she went she began wondering anxiously how many of the villagers had heard the rumour. For the first time she became nervously sensitive to the people she met on the street. She felt as if she were listening intently to hear what they thought of her. When she reached the business section she observed a curious zone of quiet formed about her as she walked. Everyone stopped talking and watched her intently. Once she saw a man motion to his companion with his eyes, and this companion very slowly and very casually turned and watched Nessie pass. It was an eerie sensation. The shabby village street stretched out before her to an amazing length. It was crowded with people, all silent, all watching. She was running a gauntlet of eyes, eyes, eyes, all staring at her. She thought of her dream again, with horror. She was walking physically into it.

The girl made a last effort to move along to her work as if nothing had happened, but her nerves were being slowly ​screwed up as if someone were tuning the strings of a violin. Suddenly she realized that something in her was getting past her control, that something would break, there would be a scene. Her habitual impulse toward prayer caused her to glance up and murmur piteously, "O God, help me! Help me!"

Then, like an answer to her prayer, she saw emerge from the door of the Grand the striding figure of Mrs. Roxie Biggers. At the sight of the old woman a sob of relief clutched Nessie's throat. The girl knew that this old woman was noted for her Christianity, her endless charity and good deeds. Now she had an impulse to fly after Mrs. Roxie and implore her help. The old woman would be her succour in this nightmarish scene; a motherly refuge to whom she could turn amid these silent staring men.

But Mrs. Roxie hurried so rapidly that Nessie would have become more conspicuous, if that were possible, should she try to run and catch up with her. The girl watched her disappear around a corner with tears of despair starting in her eyes. Her last hope of rescue had vanished.

After three endless minutes of walking, she entered the Grand. She met a village youth whose name she did not know. As he passed her in the narrow aisle between two counters of dry goods, he gave her an almost imperceptible wink and brushed his fingers across her hip.

Nessie gasped as if he had struck her with a lash. Such fear rushed upon her and weakened her that she did not know whether or not she could get to her millinery department at the end of the store.

Then she saw Mr. Baxter come angling toward her through the spaces between the ends of the counters. His face was serious and unsmiling.

"Miss Nessie!" he called to her in a queer undertone.

The girl stopped, holding to the cloth on the counter, waiting for him to come up. She noted his hair combed sleekly across his bald spot; his carefully trimmed mustache; his suave face which had the look of one accustomed ​to dealing with women. She heard him say solicitously, "You look ill, Miss Nessie."

"Yes—I'm not well."

"Perhaps you'd better go home for the day."

Nessie realized her own weak, shaken condition and agreed with a nod. There was a pause, the merchant glanced out the door, then back at her.

"And, Miss Nessie, you do look run-down, have been for several days. I believe a little vacation would do you good, chance to pick yourself up." He reached in his pocket and drew out a check book. "Why not let me give you a check for the rest of your pay this month and let you recuperate?" He smiled a strained, mechanical smile.

Nessie's face went very white; she moistened her dry lips and whispered, Yes, she would appreciate it.

Mr. Baxter produced his fountain pen and made out the check. On the notation line he wrote, "Payment of salary in full."

Nessie could feel her pulse in her neck, in her temples, her head was aching. Through her dry mouth she whispered, "Thank you."

The merchant drew a silent breath himself as if he had completed a disagreeable task. As he handed Nessie the check, he looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, and said quite ingenuously and with a remote sympathy, "You really do look sick, Miss Nessie—I'll send you home in the delivery wagon."

With a sinking feeling Nessie could see herself, more conspicuous than ever, being sent home in a delivery wagon, but she was too weak to walk. She went to the front of the store and shrank inside the recessed door of the Grand until the wagon came. Once a wild notion struck her to ask Archie, the delivery boy, to take her to the home of Mrs. Biggers. It seemed to Nessie that unless she could find some woman to whom she could unburden her grief and fear, some real friend upon whom she could rest in this nightmarish hour, she must go mad indeed.

​But her head ached now with such a steady, throbbing pain, that by the time Archie came (glancing at her curiously and ill at ease himself) she was too ill to see any one, even the most perfect example of pious charity which the village afforded.