The death of Jean Clemens occurred early in the morning of December 24, 1909. Mr. Clemens was in great stress of mind when I first saw him, but a few hours later I found him writing steadily.
"I am setting it down," he said, "everything. It is a
relief to me to write it. It furnishes me an excuse for thinking." At intervals during that day and the next I looked in, and usually found him writing. Then on the evening of the 26th, when he knew that Jean had been laid to rest in Elmira, he came to my room with the manuscript in his hand.
"I have finished it," he said; "read it. I can form no
opinion of it myself. If you think it worthy, some day--at the
proper time--it can end my autobiography. It is the final
chapter."
Four months later--almost to the day--(April 21st) he was
with Jean.
Albert Bigelow Paine.
Stormfield, Christmas Eve, 11 A.M., 1909.
JEAN IS DEAD!
Has any one ever tried to put upon paper all the little
happenings connected with a dear one--happenings of the twenty-
four hours preceding the sudden and unexpected death of that dear
one? Would a book contain them? Would two books contain them?
I think not. They pour into the mind in a flood. They are
little things that have been always happening every day, and were
always so unimportant and easily forgettable before--but now!
Now, how different! how precious they are, now dear, how
unforgettable, how pathetic, how sacred, how clothed with dignity!
Last night Jean, all flushed with splendid health, and I the
same, from the wholesome effects of my Bermuda holiday, strolled
hand in hand from the dinner-table and sat down in the library
and chatted, and planned, and discussed, cheerily and happily
(and how unsuspectingly!)--until nine--which is late for us--then
went upstairs, Jean's friendly German dog following. At my door
Jean said, "I can't kiss you good night, father: I have a cold,
and you could catch it." I bent and kissed her hand. She was
moved--I saw it in her eyes--and she impulsively kissed my hand
in return. Then with the usual gay "Sleep well, dear!" from
both, we parted.
At half past seven this morning I woke, and heard voices
outside my door. I said to myself, "Jean is starting on her
usual horseback flight to the station for the mail." Then Katy
[1] entered, stood quaking and gasping at my bedside a moment,
then found her tongue:
"MISS JEAN IS DEAD!"
Possibly I know now what the soldier feels when a bullet
crashes through his heart.
In her bathroom there she lay, the fair young creature,
stretched upon the floor and covered with a sheet. And looking
so placid, so natural, and as if asleep. We knew what had
happened. She was an epileptic: she had been seized with a
convulsion and heart failure in her bath. The doctor had to come
several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones, failed to
bring her back to life.
It is noon, now. How lovable she looks, how sweet and how
tranquil! It is a noble face, and full of dignity; and that was
a good heart that lies there so still.
In England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were stabbed
to the heart with a cablegram which said, "Susy was mercifully
released today." I had to send a like shot to Clara, in Berlin,
this morning. With the peremptory addition, "You must not come
home." Clara and her husband sailed from here on the 11th of
this month. How will Clara bear it? Jean, from her babyhood,
was a worshiper of Clara.
Four days ago I came back from a month's holiday in Bermuda
in perfected health; but by some accident the reporters failed to
perceive this. Day before yesterday, letters and telegrams began
to arrive from friends and strangers which indicated that I was
supposed to be dangerously ill. Yesterday Jean begged me to
explain my case through the Associated Press. I said it was not
important enough; but she was distressed and said I must think of
Clara. Clara would see the report in the German papers, and as
she had been nursing her husband day and night for four months
[2] and was worn out and feeble, the shock might be disastrous.
There was reason in that; so I sent a humorous paragraph by
telephone to the Associated Press denying the "charge" that I was
"dying," and saying "I would not do such a thing at my time of
life."
Jean was a little troubled, and did not like to see me treat
the matter so lightly; but I said it was best to treat it so, for
there was nothing serious about it. This morning I sent the
sorrowful facts of this day's irremediable disaster to the
Associated Press. Will both appear in this evening's papers?--
the one so blithe, the other so tragic?
I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother--her
incomparable mother!--five and a half years ago; Clara has gone
away to live in Europe; and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am,
who was once so rich! Seven months ago Mr. Roger died--one of
the best friends I ever had, and the nearest perfect, as man and
gentleman, I have yet met among my race; within the last six
weeks Gilder has passed away, and Laffan--old, old friends of
mine. Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our
own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night--and it
was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit
here--writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking.
How dazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is
like a mockery.
Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days ago. Seventy-four
years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age today?
I have looked upon her again. I wonder I can bear it. She
looks just as her mother looked when she lay dead in that
Florentine villa so long ago. The sweet placidity of death! it
is more beautiful than sleep.
I saw her mother buried. I said I would never endure that
horror again; that I would never again look into the grave of any
one dear to me. I have kept to that. They will take Jean from
this house tomorrow, and bear her to Elmira, New York, where lie
those of us that have been released, but I shall not follow.
Jean was on the dock when the ship came in, only four days
ago. She was at the door, beaming a welcome, when I reached this
house the next evening. We played cards, and she tried to teach
me a new game called "Mark Twain." We sat chatting cheerily in
the library last night, and she wouldn't let me look into the
loggia, where she was making Christmas preparations. She said
she would finish them in the morning, and then her little French
friend would arrive from New York--the surprise would follow; the
surprise she had been working over for days. While she was out
for a moment I disloyally stole a look. The loggia floor was
clothed with rugs and furnished with chairs and sofas; and the
uncompleted surprise was there: in the form of a Christmas tree
that was drenched with silver film in a most wonderful way; and
on a table was prodigal profusion of bright things which she was
going to hang upon it today. What desecrating hand will ever
banish that eloquent unfinished surprise from that place? Not
mine, surely. All these little matters have happened in the last
four days. "Little." Yes--THEN. But not now. Nothing she said
or thought or did is little now. And all the lavish humor!--what
is become of it? It is pathos, now. Pathos, and the thought of
it brings tears.
All these little things happened such a few hours ago--and
now she lies yonder. Lies yonder, and cares for nothing any
more. Strange--marvelous--incredible! I have had this
experience before; but it would still be incredible if I had had
it a thousand times.
"MISS JEAN IS DEAD!"
That is what Katy said. When I heard the door open behind
the bed's head without a preliminary knock, I supposed it was
Jean coming to kiss me good morning, she being the only person
who was used to entering without formalities.
And so--
I have been to Jean's parlor. Such a turmoil of Christmas
presents for servants and friends! They are everywhere; tables,
chairs, sofas, the floor--everything is occupied, and over-
occupied. It is many and many a year since I have seen the like.
In that ancient day Mrs. Clemens and I used to slip softly into
the nursery at midnight on Christmas Eve and look the array of
presents over. The children were little then. And now here is
Jean's parlor looking just as that nursery used to look. The
presents are not labeled--the hands are forever idle that would
have labeled them today. Jean's mother always worked herself
down with her Christmas preparations. Jean did the same
yesterday and the preceding days, and the fatigue has cost her
her life. The fatigue caused the convulsion that attacked her
this morning. She had had no attack for months.
Jean was so full of life and energy that she was constantly
is danger of overtaxing her strength. Every morning she was in
the saddle by half past seven, and off to the station for her
mail. She examined the letters and I distributed them: some to
her, some to Mr. Paine, the others to the stenographer and
myself. She dispatched her share and then mounted her horse
again and went around superintending her farm and her poultry the
rest of the day. Sometimes she played billiards with me after
dinner, but she was usually too tired to play, and went early to
bed.
Yesterday afternoon I told her about some plans I had been
devising while absent in Bermuda, to lighten her burdens. We
would get a housekeeper; also we would put her share of the
secretary-work into Mr. Paine's hands.
No--she wasn't willing. She had been making plans herself.
The matter ended in a compromise, I submitted. I always did.
She wouldn't audit the bills and let Paine fill out the checks--
she would continue to attend to that herself. Also, she would
continue to be housekeeper, and let Katy assist. Also, she would
continue to answer the letters of personal friends for me. Such
was the compromise. Both of us called it by that name, though I
was not able to see where my formidable change had been made.
However, Jean was pleased, and that was sufficient for me.
She was proud of being my secretary, and I was never able to persuade
her to give up any part of her share in that unlovely work.
In the talk last night I said I found everything going so
smoothly that if she were willing I would go back to Bermuda in
February and get blessedly out of the clash and turmoil again for
another month. She was urgent that I should do it, and said that
if I would put off the trip until March she would take Katy and
go with me. We struck hands upon that, and said it was settled.
I had a mind to write to Bermuda by tomorrow's ship and secure a
furnished house and servants. I meant to write the letter this
morning. But it will never be written, now.
For she lies yonder, and before her is another journey than that.
Night is closing down; the rim of the sun barely shows above the
sky-line of the hills.
I have been looking at that face again that was growing dearer
and dearer to me every day. I was getting acquainted with
Jean in these last nine months. She had been long an exile from
home when she came to us three-quarters of a year ago. She had
been shut up in sanitariums, many miles from us. How eloquent
glad and grateful she was to cross her father's threshold again!
Would I bring her back to life if I could do it? I would not.
If a word would do it, I would beg for strength to withhold
the word. And I would have the strength; I am sure of it. In
her loss I am almost bankrupt, and my life is a bitterness, but I
am content: for she has been enriched with the most precious of
all gifts--that gift which makes all other gifts mean and poor--
death. I have never wanted any released friend of mine restored
to life since I reached manhood. I felt in this way when Susy
passed away; and later my wife, and later Mr. Rogers. When Clara
met me at the station in New York and told me Mr. Rogers had died
suddenly that morning, my thought was, Oh, favorite of fortune--
fortunate all his long and lovely life--fortunate to his latest
moment! The reporters said there were tears of sorrow in my
eyes. True--but they were for ME, not for him. He had suffered
no loss. All the fortunes he had ever made before were poverty
compared with this one.
Why did I build this house, two years ago? To shelter this
vast emptiness? How foolish I was! But I shall stay in it. The
spirits of the dead hallow a house, for me. It was not so with
other members of the family. Susy died in the house we built in
Hartford. Mrs. Clemens would never enter it again. But it made
the house dearer to me. I have entered it once since, when it
was tenantless and silent and forlorn, but to me it was a holy
place and beautiful. It seemed to me that the spirits of the
dead were all about me, and would speak to me and welcome me if
they could: Livy, and Susy, and George, and Henry Robinson, and
Charles Dudley Warner. How good and kind they were, and how
lovable their lives! In fancy I could see them all again, I
could call the children back and hear them romp again with
George--that peerless black ex-slave and children's idol who came
one day--a flitting stranger--to wash windows, and stayed
eighteen years. Until he died. Clara and Jean would never enter
again the New York hotel which their mother had frequented in
earlier days. They could not bear it. But I shall stay in this
house. It is dearer to me tonight than ever it was before.
Jean's spirit will make it beautiful for me always. Her lonely
and tragic death--but I will not think of that now.
Jean's mother always devoted two or three weeks to Christmas
shopping, and was always physically exhausted when Christmas Eve
came. Jean was her very own child--she wore herself out present-
hunting in New York these latter days. Paine has just found on
her desk a long list of names--fifty, he thinks--people to whom
she sent presents last night. Apparently she forgot no one. And
Katy found there a roll of bank-notes, for the servants.
Her dog has been wandering about the grounds today,
comradeless and forlorn. I have seen him from the windows. She
got him from Germany. He has tall ears and looks exactly like a
wolf. He was educated in Germany, and knows no language but the
German. Jean gave him no orders save in that tongue. And so
when the burglar-alarm made a fierce clamor at midnight a
fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no German,
tried in vain to interest the dog in the supposed burglar. Jean
wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. It was the last letter
I was ever to receive from her bright head and her competent hand.
The dog will not be neglected.
There was never a kinder heart than Jean's. From her
childhood up she always spent the most of her allowance on
charities of one kind or another. After she became secretary and
had her income doubled she spent her money upon these things with
a free hand. Mine too, I am glad and grateful to say.
She was a loyal friend to all animals, and she loved them
all, birds, beasts, and everything--even snakes--an inheritance
from me. She knew all the birds; she was high up in that lore.
She became a member of various humane societies when she was
still a little girl--both here and abroad--and she remained an
active member to the last. She founded two or three societies
for the protection of animals, here and in Europe.
She was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished my
correspondence out of the waste-basket and answered the letters.
She thought all letters deserved the courtesy of an answer.
Her mother brought her up in that kindly error.
She could write a good letter, and was swift with her pen.
She had but an indifferent ear music, but her tongue took to
languages with an easy facility. She never allowed her Italian,
French, and German to get rusty through neglect.
The telegrams of sympathy are flowing in, from far and wide,
now, just as they did in Italy five years and a half ago, when
this child's mother laid down her blameless life. They cannot
heal the hurt, but they take away some of the pain. When Jean
and I kissed hands and parted at my door last, how little did we
imagine that in twenty-two hours the telegraph would be bringing
words like these:
"From the bottom of our hearts we send out sympathy,
dearest of friends."
For many and many a day to come, wherever I go in this house,
remembrancers of Jean will mutely speak to me of her. Who can
count the number of them?
She was in exile two years with the hope of healing her
malady--epilepsy. There are no words to express how grateful I
am that she did not meet her fate in the hands of strangers, but
in the loving shelter of her own home.
"MISS JEAN IS DEAD!"
It is true. Jean is dead.
A month ago I was writing bubbling and hilarious articles
for magazines yet to appear, and now I am writing--this.
CHRISTMAS DAY. NOON.--Last night I went to Jean's room at
intervals, and turned back the sheet and looked at the peaceful
face, and kissed the cold brow, and remembered that heartbreaking
night in Florence so long ago, in that cavernous and silent vast
villa, when I crept downstairs so many times, and turned back a
sheet and looked at a face just like this one--Jean's mother's
face--and kissed a brow that was just like this one. And last
night I saw again what I had seen then--that strange and lovely
miracle--the sweet, soft contours of early maidenhood restored by
the gracious hand of death! When Jean's mother lay dead, all
trace of care, and trouble, and suffering, and the corroding
years had vanished out of the face, and I was looking again upon
it as I had known and worshipped it in its young bloom and beauty
a whole generation before.
About three in the morning, while wandering about the house
in the deep silences, as one does in times like these, when there
is a dumb sense that something has been lost that will never be
found again, yet must be sought, if only for the employment the
useless seeking gives, I came upon Jean's dog in the hall
downstairs, and noted that he did not spring to greet me,
according to his hospitable habit, but came slow and sorrowfully;
also I remembered that he had not visited Jean's apartment since
the tragedy. Poor fellow, did he know? I think so. Always when
Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when she was
in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the day.
Her parlor was his bedroom. Whenever I happened upon him on the
ground floor he always followed me about, and when I went
upstairs he went too--in a tumultuous gallop. But now it was
different: after patting him a little I went to the library--he
remained behind; when I went upstairs he did not follow me, save
with his wistful eyes. He has wonderful eyes--big, and kind, and
eloquent. He can talk with them. He is a beautiful creature,
and is of the breed of the New York police-dogs. I do not like
dogs, because they bark when there is no occasion for it; but I
have liked this one from the beginning, because he belonged to
Jean, and because he never barks except when there is occasion--
which is not oftener than twice a week.
In my wanderings I visited Jean's parlor. On a shelf I
found a pile of my books, and I knew what it meant. She was
waiting for me to come home from Bermuda and autograph them, then
she would send them away. If I only knew whom she intended them
for! But I shall never know. I will keep them. Her hand has
touched them--it is an accolade--they are noble, now.
And in a closet she had hidden a surprise for me--a thing I
have often wished I owned: a noble big globe. I couldn't see it
for the tears. She will never know the pride I take in it, and
the pleasure. Today the mails are full of loving remembrances
for her: full of those old, old kind words she loved so well,
"Merry Christmas to Jean!" If she could only have lived one day
longer!
At last she ran out of money, and would not use mine. So
she sent to one of those New York homes for poor girls all the
clothes she could spare--and more, most likely.
CHRISTMAS NIGHT.--This afternoon they took her away from her
room. As soon as I might, I went down to the library, and there
she lay, in her coffin, dressed in exactly the same clothes she
wore when she stood at the other end of the same room on the 6th
of October last, as Clara's chief bridesmaid. Her face was
radiant with happy excitement then; it was the same face now,
with the dignity of death and the peace of God upon it.
They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came
uninvited, and stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws
upon the trestle, and took a last long look at the face that was
so dear to him, then went his way as silently as he had come.
HE KNOWS.
At mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it--that
Jean could not see it! She so loved the snow.
The snow continued to fall. At six o'clock the hearse drew
up to the door to bear away its pathetic burden. As they lifted
the casket, Paine began playing on the orchestrelle Schubert's
"Impromptu," which was Jean's favorite. Then he played the
Intermezzo; that was for Susy; then he played the Largo; that was
for their mother. He did this at my request. Elsewhere in my
Autobiography I have told how the Intermezzo and the Largo came
to be associated in my heart with Susy and Livy in their last
hours in this life.
From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind
along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the
falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my
life, and would not come back any more. Jervis, the cousin she
had played with when they were babies together--he and her
beloved old Katy--were conducting her to her distant childhood
home, where she will lie by her mother's side once more, in the
company of Susy and Langdon.
DECEMBER 26TH. The dog came to see me at eight o'clock this
morning. He was very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be
his quarters hereafter.
The storm raged all night. It has raged all the morning.
The snow drives across the landscape in vast clouds, superb,
sublime--and Jean not here to see.
2:30 P.M.--It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun.
Four hundred miles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were
there. The scene is the library in the Langdon homestead.
Jean's coffin stands where her mother and I stood, forty years
ago, and were married; and where Susy's coffin stood thirteen
years ago; where her mother's stood five years and a half ago;
and where mine will stand after a little time.
FIVE O'CLOCK.--It is all over.
When Clara went away two weeks ago to live in Europe, it was
hard, but I could bear it, for I had Jean left. I said WE would
be a family. We said we would be close comrades and happy--just
we two. That fair dream was in my mind when Jean met me at the
steamer last Monday; it was in my mind when she received me at
the door last Tuesday evening. We were together; WE WERE A
FAMILY! the dream had come true--oh, precisely true, contentedly,
true, satisfyingly true! and remained true two whole days.
And now? Now Jean is in her grave!
In the grave--if I can believe it. God rest her sweet
spirit!
-----
1. Katy Leary, who had been in the service of the Clemens family
for twenty-nine years.
2. Mr. Gabrilowitsch had been operated on for appendicitis.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We value your words...