BOOK IIHIDDEN
“DEAD?”
The word was spoken in such astonishment that it had almost the emphasis of unbelief.
From whose lips had it come?
I turned to see. We were all still grouped near or about the bed, but this voice was strange, or so it seemed to me at the moment.
But it was strange only from emotion. It was that of Dr. Cameron, who had come quietly in, in response to the summons sent him at the first sign of change seen in his patient.
“I did not anticipate this,” he was now saying. “Yesterday he had strength enough for a fortnight or more of life. What was his trouble? He must have excited himself.”
Looking round upon our faces as we failed to reply, he let his fingers rest on the bowl from which little whiffs of smoke were still going up. “This is an odd thing to have where disinfection is not necessary. Something of a most unusual nature has taken place here. What was it? Did I not tell you to keep him quiet?”
It was Edgar who answered.
“Doctor, you knew my uncle. Knew him in health and knew him in illness. Do you think that any one could have kept him quiet if he had the will to act even if it were to please simply a momentary whim? What then if he felt himself called upon to risk his life in the performance of a duty? Could you or I or even his well loveddaughter have prevented him?” And looking very noble, Edgar met the doctor’s eye unflinchingly.
“Ah, a duty!” The doctor’s voice had grown milder. “No, I do not think that any of us could have stopped him in that case.”
Turning towards the bed, he stood a moment gazing at the rigid countenance which but a few minutes before had been so expressive of emotion. Then, raising his hand, he pointed directly at it, saying with a gravity which shook every heart:
“The performance of duty brings relief to both mind and body. Then why this look of alarm with which he met his end—”
“Because he felt it coming before that duty was fully accomplished. If you must know, doctor, I am willing to tell you what occasioned this sudden collapse. Shall I not, Orpha? Shall I not, Quenton? It is his right, as our physician. We shall save ourselves nothing by silence.”
“Tell.”
That was all Orpha seemed to have power to utter, and I attempted little more. I was willing the doctor should know—that all the world should know—my part in this grievous tragedy. Even if I had wished for silence, the sting of Edgar’s tone as he mentioned my name would have been enough to make me speak.
“I have no wish to keep anything from the doctor,” I affirmed as quickly and evenly as if the matter were of ordinary purport. “Only tell him all; keep nothing back.”
And Edgar did so with a simplicity and fairness which did him credit. If he had shown a tinge of sarcasm when he addressed me directly, it was not heard in the relation he now gave of the drawing up of the two wills and ouruncle’s final act in destroying one. “He loved me—it was a life-long affection—and when Quenton came, he loved him.” This was said with a certain display of hardihood.—“Not wishing to divide his fortune but to leave it largely in favor of one, he wavered for a time between us, but finally, at the conscious approach of death, made up his mind and acted as you have seen. Only,” he finished with naïveté peculiar to his temperament and nature, “we do not know which of us he has chosen to bless or curse with his great fortune. You see the remains of one will. But of the other one or of its contents we have as yet no knowledge.”
The doctor, who had followed Edgar’s words with great intentness, opened his lips as though to address him, but failed to do so, turning his attention towards me instead. Then, still without speaking, he drew up the sheet over the face once so instinct with every generous emotion, and quietly left our presence. As the door closed upon him Orpha burst into sobs, and it was Edgar’s arm, not mine, which fell about her shoulders.
No attempt was made during those first few grief-stricken hours to settle the question alluded to above. Of course it would be an easy matter to find the will which he from sheer physical weakness could not have put very far away. But Edgar showed no anxiety to find it and I studiously refrained from showing any; while Orpha seemed to have forgotten everything but her loss.
But at nightfall Edgar came to where I was pacing the verandah and, halting in the open French window, said without preamble and quite brusquely for him:
“The will of which Uncle spoke as having been taken from the other envelope and concealed in some drawer or other, cannot be found. It is not in the cubby-hole at the back of his bed or in any of the drawers or subdivisions of his desk. You were with him later than I last night. Did he intimate to you in any way where he intended to put it?”
“I left him while the two wills, or at least the two envelopes, still remained in his hands. But Clarke ought to be able to tell you. He is the one most likely to have gone in immediately upon my departure.”
“Clarke says that he no sooner entered Uncle’s presence than he was ordered out, with an injunction not to come back or to allow any one else to approach the room for a full half hour. My uncle wished to be alone.”
“And was he obeyed?”
“Clarke says that he was. Wealthy was sitting in her usual place in the hall as he went by to his room; andanswered with a quiet nod when he told her what Uncle’s wishes were. She is the last person to disobey them. Yet Uncle had been so emphatic that more than once he stole about the corner to see if she were still sitting where he had left her. And she was. Neither he nor she disturbed him until the time was up. Then Clarke went in. Uncle was sitting in his great chair looking very tired. The envelopes were in his hand but he allowed Clarke to add them to a pile of other documents lying on the stand by his bed where they still were when Wealthy came in. She says she was astonished to see so many valuable papers lying there, for he usually kept everything of the kind in the little cubby-hole let into the head of his bed. But when she offered to put them there he said ‘No,’ and was very peremptory indeed in his demand that she should go down to Orpha’s room on an errand, which while of no especial moment, would keep her from the room for fifteen minutes if not longer. She went and when she came back the envelopes as well as all the other papers were still lying on the stand. Later, at his request, she put them all back in the drawer.”
“Looking at them as she did so?”
“No.”
“Who got them out this morning? The two envelopes, I mean.”
“She, and it was not till then that she noticed that one of them was empty. She says, and the plausibility of her surmise you must acknowledge, that it was during the time she was below with Orpha, that Uncle took out the will now missing from its envelope and hid it away. Where, we cannot conceive.”
“What do you know of this woman?”
“Nothing but what is good. She has had the confidence of many people for years.”
“It is an extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves,” I commented, approaching him where he still stood in the open window. “But there cannot be any real difficulty ahead of us. The hiding-places which in his feeble state he could reach, are few. To-morrow will see this necessary document in hand. Meanwhile, you are the master.”
I said it to try him. Though my tone was a matter-of-fact one he could not but feel the sting of such a declaration from me.
And he did, and fully as much as I expected.
“You seem to think,” he said, with a dilation of the nostril and a sudden straightening of his lips which while it lasted made him look years older than his age, “that there is such a thing as the possibility of some other person taking that place upon the finding and probating of the remaining will.”
“I have reason to, Edgar.”
“How much reason, Quenton?”
“Only my uncle’s word.”
“Ah!” He was very still, but the shot went home. “And what did he say?” he asked after a moment of silent communion with himself.
“That I was the man.”
I repeated these words with as little offense as possible. I felt that no advantage should be taken of his ignorance if indeed he were as ignorant as he seemed. Nor did I feel like wounding his feelings. I simply wanted no misunderstandings to arise.
“You the man! He said that?”
“Those were his exact words.”
“The man to administer his wealth? To take his place in this community? To—” his voice sank lower, therewas even an air of apology in his manner—“to wed his daughter?”
“Yes. And to my mind,”—I said it fervently—“this last honor out-weighs all the rest. I love Orpha deeply and devotedly. I have never told her so, but few women are loved as I love her.”
“You dare?” The word escaped him almost without his volition. “Didn’t you know that there at least I have the precedence? That she and I are engaged—”
“Truly, Edgar?”
He looked down at my hand which I had laid in honest appeal on his arm and as he did so he flushed ever so slightly.
“I regard myself as engaged to her.”
“Yet you do not love her. Not as I do,” I hastened to add. “She is my past, my present and my future; she is my whole life. Otherwise my conduct would be inexcusable. There is no reason why I should take precedence of you in other ways than that.”
He was taken aback. He had not expected any such an avowal from me. I had kept my secret well. It had not escaped the father’s eye but it had that of the lukewarm lover.
“You have some excuse for your presumption,” he admitted at last. “There has been no public recognition of our intentions, nor have we made any display of our affection. But you know it now, and must eliminate from your program that hope which you say is your whole life. As for the rest, I might as well tell you, now as later, that nothing but the sight of the lost will, made out as you have the hardihood to declare, will ever convince me that Uncle, even in the throes of approaching dissolution, would so far forget the affection of years as to giveinto the hands of my betrothed wife for public destruction the will he had made while under the stress of that affection. The one we all saw reduced to ashes was the one in which your name figured the largest. That I shall always believe and act upon till you can show me in black and white the absolute proof that I have made a mistake.”
He spoke with an air of dignity and yet with an air of detachment also, not looking me in the eye. The sympathy I had felt for him in his unfortunate position left me and I became boldly critical of everything he said. In every matter in which we, creatures of an hour, are concerned, there are depths which are never fully sounded. The present one was not likely to prove an exception. But the time had not come for me to show any positive distrust, so I let him go, with what I tried to make a dispassionate parting.
“Neither of us wish to take advantage of the other. That is why we are both disposed to be frank. I shall stand on my rights, too, Edgar, if events prove that I am legally entitled to them. You cannot expect me to do otherwise. I am a man like yourself andI love Orpha.”
Like a flash he wheeled at that and came hastily back.
“Do you mean that according to your ideas she goes absolutely with the fortune, in these days of woman’s independence? You will have to change your ideas. Uncle would never bind her to his wishes like that.”
He spoke with a conviction not observable in anything he had said before. He was not surmising now but speaking from what looked very much like knowledge.
“Then you saw those two wills—read them—became acquainted with their contents before I knew of their existence?”
“Fortunately, yes,” he allowed.
“There you have the advantage of me. I have only a general knowledge of the same. They were not unfolded before my eyes.”
He did not respond to this suggestion as I had some hope that he would, but stood in silence, drumming nervously with his fingers on the framework of the window standing open at his side. My heart, always sensitive to changes of emotion, began pounding in my breast. He was meditating some action or formulating some disclosure, the character of which I could not even guess at. I saw resolution climaxing in the expression of his eye.
“Quenton, there is something you don’t know.” These words came with slow intensity; he was looking fairly at me now. “There is another will, a former one, drawn up and attested to previous to those which made a nightmare of our uncle’s final days. That one I have also seen, and what is more to the point, I believe it to be still in existence, either in some drawer of my uncle’s desk or in the hands of Mr. Dunn, our legal adviser, and consequently producible at any time. I will tell you on my honor that by the terms of this first will—the only one which will stand—I am given everything, over and above certain legacies, which were alike in all three wills.”
“No mention of Orpha?”
“Yes. He leaves her a stated sum and with such expressions of confidence and affection that no one can doubt he did what he did from a conception, mistaken perhaps but sincere, that he was taking the best course to secure her happiness.”
“Was this will made previous to my coming or after?”
“Before.”
“How long before, Edgar? You cannot question my right to know.”
“I question nothing but the good taste of this conversation on the part of both of us, while Uncle lies cold in the house!”
“You are right; we will defer it. Take my hand, Edgar. I have not from the beginning to the end played you false in this matter. Nor have I made any effort beyond being at all times responsive to Uncle’s goodness, to influence him in any unfair way against you. We are cousins and should be friends.”
He took a long breath, smiled faintly and reached out his hand to mine. “You have the more solid virtues,” he laughed, “and I ought to envy you. But I don’t. The lighter ones will win and when they do—notifmind you, butwhen—then we will talk of friendship.”
Not the sort of harangue calculated to calm my spirits or to make this day of mourning lose any of its gloom.
That night I slept but little. I had much to grieve over; much to think about. I had lost my best friend. Of that I was sure. His place would never again be filled in my heart or in my imagination. Without him the house seemed a barren shell save for the dim unseen corner where my darling mourned in her own way the man we both loved.
Might we but have shared each other’s suffering!
But under the existing state of things, that could not be. Our relations, one to the other, were too unsettled. Which thought brought me at once face to face with the most hopeless of all my perplexities. How were Orpha and I to know—and when, if ever—what Uncle’s wishes were or what his final intentions? The will which would have made everything plain, as well as fixed the status of everybody in the house, had not been found; and among the disadvantages in which this placed me was the fact that he, as the present acknowledged head of the house, had rights which it would have been most unbecoming in me to infringe upon. If he wished a door to be closed against me, I could not, as a mere resident under his roof, ask to have it opened. For days—possibly for weeks,—at all events until he saw fit to pursue the search he had declared to be at present so hopeless, it was for me to remain quiescent—a man apart—anxious for my rights but unable as a gentleman and a guest to make a move towards obtaining them.
And unhappily for us, instantaneous action was what the conditions called for. An immediate and exhaustive inquiry, conducted by Edgar in the presence of every occupantof the house, offered the only hope of arriving speedily at the truth of what it was not to the interests of any of us to leave much longer in doubt.
For some one of the few persons admitted to Uncle’s presence after Edgar and I had left it, must have aided him in the disposal of this missing document. He was far too feeble to have taken it from the room himself, nor could he, without a helping hand, have made any extraordinary effort within it which would have necessitated the displacing of furniture or the opening of drawers or other receptacles not plainly in sight and within easy access.
If the will which his sudden death prevented him from definitely locating was not found within twenty-four hours, it would never be found. The one helping him will have suppressed it; and this is what I believed had already occurred. For every servant in the house from his man Clarke to a shy little sewing girl who from time to time scurried on timid feet through the halls, favored Edgar to the point of self-effacing devotion.
And Edgar knew it.
Recognizing this fact at its full value, but not as yet questioning his probity, I asked myself who was the first person to enter my uncle’s room immediately after my departure on the evening before.
I did not know.
Did Edgar? Had he taken any pains to find out?
Fruitless to conjecture. Impertinent to inquire.
I had left Uncle sitting by the fire. He had bidden me call Wealthy, and it was just possible that in the interim elapsing between my going out and the entrance of nurse or servant, he had found the nervous strength to hide the missing paper where no one as yet had thought to look for it.
It did not seem possible, and I gave but little credenceto this theory; yet such is the activity of the mind when once thoroughly aroused, that all through the long night I was in fancy searching the dark corners of my uncle’s room and tabulating the secret spots and unsuspected crevices in which the document so important to myself might lie hidden.
Beginning with the bed, I asked myself if there could be anywhere in it an undiscovered hiding-place other than the drawer I have already mentioned as having been let into the head-board. I decided to the contrary since this piece of furniture upon which he had been found lying, would have received the closest attention of the searchers. If Edgar had called in the services of Wealthy, as it would be natural for him to do, she would never have left the mattresses and pillows unexamined; while he would have ransacked the little drawer and sounded the wood of the bedstead for hollow posts or convenient slits. I could safely trust that the bed could tell no tales beyond those associated with our uncle’s sufferings. Leaving it, then, in my imaginary circuit of the room, I followed the wall running parallel with the main hall, till I came to the door opening at the southern end of the room into a short passage-way communicating with that hall.
Here I paused a moment, for built into this passage-way was a cabinet which during his illness had been used for the safe-guarding of medicine bottles, etc. Could a folded paper of the size of the will find any place among the boxes and phials with which every one of its shelves were filled? I knew the place well enough to come to the quick decision that I should lose nothing by passing them quickly by.
Turning the corner which had nothing to show but another shelf—this time a hanging one—on which there was never anything kept but a jar or two and a small photographof Edgar, I concentrated my attention on the south wall made beautiful by the full length portrait of Orpha concerning which I have said so much.
It had not always hung there. It had been brought from the den, as you will remember, when Uncle’s illness had become pronounced, taking the place of a painting which had been hung elsewhere. Flanked by windows on either side, it filled the wall-space up to where a table stood of size sufficient to answer for the serving of a meal. There were chairs here too and Orpha’s little basket standing on its three slender legs. The document might have been put under her work. But no, the woman would have found it there; or in the table drawer, or among the cushions of the couch filling the space between this corner and the fireplace. There were rugs all over the room but they must have been lifted; and as for the fireplace itself, not having had the sifting of the ashes, I must leave it unconsidered.
But not so the mantel or the winged chair dedicated solely to my Uncle’s use and always kept near the hearth. This was where I had last seen him, sitting in this chair close to the fire-dogs. The two wills were in his hands. Could one have fallen from its envelope and so into the flames,—the one he had meant to preserve,—the one which was not marked with a hastily scrawled cross? Mad questions to which there was no answer. Would that I might have been the man to sift those ashes! Or that I might yet be given the opportunity of looking behind the ancient painting which filled the large square above the mantel. I did not see how anything like a folded paper could have been lodged there; but not an inch from floor to ceiling would have escaped my inspection had I been fortunate enough or my claims been considered important enough to have entitled me to assist in the search.
Should I end this folly of a disturbed imagination? Forget the room for to-night and the whole gruesome tragedy? Could I, in reality, do this before I had only half circled the room? There was the desk,—the place of all others where he would naturally lock up a paper of value. But this was so obvious that probably not another article in the room had been more thoroughly overhauled or its contents more rigidly examined. If any of its drawers or compartments contained false backs or double bottoms, Edgar would be likely to know it. Up to the night of the ball, when in some way he forfeited a portion of our uncle’s regard, he had been, according to his own story, in his benefactor’s full confidence, even in matters connected with business and his most private transactions. The desk was negligible, if, as I sincerely believed, he had sought to conceal the will from Edgar, as temporarily from every one else.
But back of the desk there was a book-case, and books offer an excellent hiding-place. But that book-case was always locked, and the key to it, linked with that of the desk, kept safely to hand in the drawer inserted in his bed-head. The desk-key, of course, had come into use at the first moment of the search, but had that of the book-case? Possibly not.
I made a note of this doubt; and in my fancy moved on to the two rooms which completed my uncle’s suite towards the north. The study and a dressing closet! I say study and I say closet but both were large enough to merit the name of rooms. The dressing-closet was under the combined care of Wealthy and Clarke. They must be acquainted with every nook and corner of it. Wealthy had undoubtedly been consulted as to its contents, but had Clarke?
The study, since the time when Uncle’s condition became serious enough to have a nurse within call, had been occupiedby Wealthy. Certainly he would have hidden nothing in her room which he wished kept from Edgar.
The fourth corner was negligible; so was the wall between it and a second passage-way which, like the one already described, led to a door opening into the main hall. Only, this one, necessitated like the other by the curious break between the old house and the new, held no cabinet or any place of concealment. It was the way of entrance most used by uncle when in health and by all the rest of us both then and later. Had he made use of it that night, for reaching the hall and some place beyond?
Hardly; but if he had, where would he have found a cubby-hole for the will, short of Edgar’s room or mine?
The closet indicated in the diagram of this room as offering another break in this eastern wall, was the next thing to engage my attention.
I had often seen it open and it held, according to my recollection, nothing but clothes. He had always been very methodical in his ways and each coat had its hook and every hat, not in constant use, its own box. The hooks ran along the back and along one of the sides; the other side was given up to shelves only wide enough to hold the boxes just alluded to and the long row of shoes, the number and similarity of which I found it hard to account for till I heard some one in speaking of petty economies and of how we all have them, mentioned this peculiar one of my uncle’s, which was to wear a different pair of shoes every day in the week.
Had Edgar, or whoever conducted the search, gone through all the pockets of the many suits lining these simple walls? Had they lifted the shoes?
The only object to be seen between the door of this closetand the alcove sunk in the wall for the accommodation of the bed-head, was the small stand holding his night-lamp and the various articles for use and ornament which one usually sees at an invalid’s bedside. I remembered the whole collection. There was not a box there nor a book, not even a tablet nor a dish large enough to hold the will folded as I had seen it. Had the stand a drawer? Yes, but this drawer had no lock. Its contents were open to all. Edgar must have handled them. I had come back to my starting-point. And what had I gained in knowledge or in hope by my foolish imaginary quest? Nothing. I had but proved to myself that I was no more exempt than the next man from an insatiable, if hitherto unrecognized desire for this world’s goods and this world’s honors. Nothing less could have kept my thoughts so long in this especial groove at a time of such loss and so much personal sorrow.
My shame was great and to its salutary effect upon my mind I attribute a certain lessening of interest in things material which I date from this day.
My hour of humiliation over, my thoughts reverted to Orpha. I had not seen her all day nor had I any hope of seeing her on the morrow. She had not shown herself at meals, nor were we to expect her to leave her room—or so I was told—until the day of the funeral.
Whether this isolation of hers was to be complete, shutting out Edgar as well as myself, I had no means of determining. Probably not, if what uncle had told me was true and they were secretly engaged.
When I fell asleep at dawn it was with the resolution fixed in my mind, that with the first opportunity which offered I would make a desperate endeavor to explain myself to her. As my pride was such that I could only dothis in Edgar’s presence, the risk was great. So would be the test made of her feelings by the story I had to relate. If she listened, hope, shadowy but existent, might still be mine. If not, then I must bear her displeasure as best I could. Possibly I should suffer less under it than from the uncertainty which kept every nerve quivering.
The next day was without incident save such as were connected with the sad event which had thrown the house into mourning. Orpha did not appear and Edgar was visible only momentarily and that at long intervals.
When he did show himself it was with an air of quiet restraint which caused me some thought. The suspicion he had shown—or was it just a natural revulsion at my attitude and pretensions,—seemed to have left him. He was friendly in aspect and when he spoke, as he did now and then, there was apology in his tone, almost commiseration, which showed how assured he felt that nothing I could do or say would ever alter the position he was maintaining amongst us with so much grace and calm determination.
Had he found the will and had it proved to be the one favorable to his interests and not to mine? I doubted this and with cause, for the faces of those about him did not reflect his composure, but wore a look of anxious suspense quite distinct from that of sorrow, sincerely as my uncle was mourned by every member of his devoted household. I noticed this first in Clarke, who had taken his stand near his dead master’s door and could not be induced to leave it. No sentinel on watch ever showed a sadder or a more resolute countenance.
It was the same with Wealthy. Every time I passed through the hall I found her hovering near one door or the other of her former master’s room, the great tears rolling down her cheeks and her mouth set with a firmness which altered her whole appearance. Usually mild of countenance,she reminded me that day of some wild animal guarding her den, especially when her eye met mine. If the will favoring Edgar had been found, she would have faced me with a very different aspect and cared little what I did or where I stayed. But no such will had been found; and what was, perhaps, of almost equal importance, neither had the original one—the one made before I came to C——, and which Edgar had so confidently stated was still in the house. Both were gone and—Here a thought struck me which stopped me short as I was descending the stairs. If the original one had been destroyed—as would have been natural upon or immediately after the signing of the other two, and no other should ever come to light—in other words, if Uncle, so far as all practical purposes went, had died intestate, then in the course of time Orpha would inherit the whole estate (I knew enough of law to be sure of that) and if engaged to Edgar, he would have little in the end to complain of. Was this the source of his composure, so unnatural to one of his temperament and headlong impulses?
I would not have it so. With every downward step which I took after that I repeated to myself, “No! no!” and when I passed within sight of Orpha’s door somehow the feeling rose within me that she was repeating with me that same vigorous “No! no!”
A lover’s fancy founded on—well, on nothing. A dream, light as air, to be dispelled the next time I saw her. For struggle against it as I would, both reason and experience assured me only too plainly that women of her age choose for their heart’s mate, not the man whose love is the deepest and most sincere, but the one whose pleasing personality has fired their imagination and filled their minds with dreams.
And Edgar, in spite of his irregular features possessedthis appeal to the imagination above and beyond any other man I have ever met.
I shall never forget this seemingly commonplace descent of mine down these two flights of stairs. In those few minutes I seemed to myself to run the whole gamut of human emotions; to exhaust the sorrows and perplexities of a life-time.
And it was nothing; mere child’s play. Before another twenty-four hours had passed how happy would I have been if this experience had expressed the full sum of grief and trial I should be called upon to endure.
I had other experiences that day confirmatory of the conclusion I had come to. Hostile glances everywhere except as I have said from Edgar. Attention to my wants, respectful replies to my questions, which I assure you were very limited, but no display of sympathy or kind feeling from any one indoors or out. To each and all I was an unwelcome stranger, with hand stretched out to steal the morsel from another man’s dish.
I bore it. I stood the day out bravely, as was becoming in one conscious of no evil intentions; and when evening came, retired to my room, in the hope that sleep would soon bring me the relief my exhausted condition demanded.
So little are we able to foresee one hour, nay, one minute into the future.
I read a little, or tried to, then I sank into a reverie which did not last long, for they had chosen this hour to carry down the casket into the court.
My room, of which you will hear more later, was in the rear of the house and consequently somewhat removed from the quarter where all this was taking place. But imagination came to the aid of my hearing, intensifying every sound. When I could stand no more I threw up my window and leaned out into the night. There was consolation inthe darkness, and for a few fleeting minutes I felt a surcease of care and a lightening of the load weighing upon my spirits. The face of heaven was not unkind to me and I had one treasure of memory with which to meet whatever humiliation the future might bring. My uncle had been his full vigorous self at the moment he rose up before me and said, with an air of triumph, “You are the man!” For that one thrilling instant I was the man, however the people of his house chose to regard me.
Soothed by the remembrance, I drew in my head and softly closed the window. God! how still it was! Not a sound to be heard anywhere. My uncle’s body had been carried below and this whole upper floor was desolate. So was his room! The room which had witnessed such misery; the room from which I had felt myself excluded; where, if it still existed, the missing will lay hidden; the will which I must see—handle—show to the world—show to Orpha.
Was there any one there now,—watching as they had watched, at door or bedside while his body still lay in the great bed and the mystery of his last act was still a mystery unsolved?
A few steps and the question would be answered. But should I take those steps? Brain and heart said no. But man is not always governed by his brain or by his heart, or by both combined. Before I knew it and quite without conscious volition I had my hand on the knob of my door. I had no remembrance of having crossed the floor. I felt the knob of the door turning in my hand and that was the sum of my consciousness. Thus started on the way, I could not stop. The hall as I stepped into it lay bare and quiet before me. So did the main one when I had circled the bend and stood in sight of my uncle’s door. But nothing would have made me believe at that moment that there was no sentinel behind it. Yet I hurried on, listening andlooking back like a guilty man, for brain and heart were yet crying out “No.”
There was no one to mark my quickly moving figure, for the doors, whichever way I looked, were all shut. Nor would any one near or far be likely to hear my footsteps, for I was softly shod. But when I reached his door, it was as impossible for me to touch it as if I had known that the spirit of my uncle would meet me on the threshold.
Sick at heart, I staggered backwards. There should be no attempt made by me to surprise, in any underhanded, way, the secrets of this room. What I might yet be called upon to do, should be done openly and with Orpha’s consent. She was the mistress of this home. However our fortunes turned, she was now, and always would be, its moral head. This was my one glad thought.
To waft her a good-night message I leaned over the balustrade and was so leaning, when suddenly, sharply, frightfully, a cry rang up from below rousing every echo in the wide, many-roomed house. It was from a woman’s lips, but not from Orpha’s, thank God; and after that first instant of dismay, I ran forward to the stair-head and was on the point of plunging recklessly below, when the door of Uncle’s room opened and the pale and alarmed face of Wealthy confronted me.
“What is it?” she cried. “What has happened?”
Before I could answer Clarke rushed by me, appearing from I never knew where. He flew pell-mell down the stairs and I followed, scarcely less heedless of my feet than he. As we reached the bottom, I almost on top of him, a hardly audible click came from the hall above. I recognized the sound, possibly because I was in a measure listening for it. Wealthy was about to follow us, but not until she had locked the door she was leaving without a watcher.
As we all crowded in line at the foot of the first flight,the door of Orpha’s room opened and she stepped out and faced us.
“What is it? Who is hurt?” were her first words. “Somebody cried out. The voice sounded like Martha’s.”
Martha was the name of one of the girls.
“We don’t know,” replied Clarke. “We are going to see.”
She made as if to follow us.
“Don’t,” I prayed, beseeching her with look and hand. “Let us find out first whether it is anything but a woman’s hysterical outcry.”
She paused for a moment then pressed hastily on.
“I must see for myself,” she declared; and I forebore to urge her further. Nor did I offer her my arm. For my heart was very sore. She had not looked my way once, no, not even when I spoke.
So she too doubted me. Oh, God! my lot was indeed a hard one.
The scene which met our view as we halted in one of the arches overlooking the court was one for which we sought in vain for full explanation.
The casket had been placed and a man stood near it, holding the lid which he had evidently just taken off, probably at some one’s request. But it was not upon the casket or the man that our glances became instantly focused. Grief has its call but terror dominates grief, and terror stood embodied before us in the figure of the girl Martha, who with staring eyes and pointing finger bade us “Look! look!” crouching as the words left her lips and edging fearfully away.
Look? look at what? She had appeared to indicate the silent form in the casket. But that could not be. The death of the old is sad but not terrible; she must have meant something else, something which we could not perceive from where we stood.
Leaning further forward, I forced my gaze to follow hers and speedily became aware that the others were doing the same and that it was inside the casket itself that they were all peering and with much the same appearance of consternation Martha herself had shown.
Something was wrong there; and alive to the effect which this scene must have upon Orpha, I turned her way just in time to catch her as she fell back from the marble balustrade she had been clutching in her terror.
“Oh, what is it? what is it?” she moaned, her eyes meeting mine for the first time in days.
“I will go and see, if you think you can stand alone.”
“Wealthy will take care of me,” she murmured, as another arm than mine drew her forcibly away.
But I did not go on the instant for just then Martha spoke again and we heard in tones which set every heart beating tumultuously:
“Spots! Black spots on his forehead and cheek! I have seen them before—seen them on my dead brother’s face and he died from poison!”
“Wretch!” I shouted down from the gallery where I stood, in irrepressible wrath and consternation, as Orpha, escaping from Wealthy’s grasp, fell insensible at my feet. “Would you kill your young mistress!” And I stooped to lift Orpha, but an arm thrust across her pushed me inexorably back.
“Would you blame the girl for what you yourself have brought upon us?” came in a hiss to my ear.
And staring into Wealthy’s face I saw with a chill as of the grave what awaited me at the hands of Hate if no succor came from Love.
In another moment I had left the gallery. Whether it was from pride or conscious innocence or just the daring of youth in the face of sudden danger, the hot blood within me drove me to add myself to the group of friends and relatives circling my uncle’s casket, where I belonged as certainly and truly as Edgar did. Not for me to hide my head or hold myself back at a crisis so momentous as this. Even the shudder which passed from man to man at my sudden appearance did not repel me; and, when after an instant of hesitation one person after another began to sidle away till I was left there alone with the man still holding the lid in his trembling fingers, I did not move from my position or lift the hand which I had laid in reverent love upon the edge of the casket.
That every tongue was stilled and many a breath held in check I need not say. It was a moment calling for a man’s utmost courage. For the snake of suspicion whose hiss I had heard above was rearing its crest against me here, and not a friendly eye did I meet.
But perhaps I should have, if Edgar’s face had been turned my way; but it was not. Miss Colfax was one of the group watching us from the other side of the fountain, and his eyes were on her and not on me. I stood in silent observation of him for a minute, then I spoke.
“Edgar, if there is anything in the appearance of our uncle’s body which suggests foul play though it be only to an ignorant servant, why do you not send for the doctor?”
He started and, turning very slowly, gave me look for look.
“Do you advise that?” he asked.
With a glance at the dear features which were hardly recognizable, I said:
“I not only advise it, but as one who believes himself entitled to full authority here, I demand it.”
A murmur from every lip varying in tone but all hostile was followed by a silence which bitterly tried my composure. It was broken by a movement of the undertaker’s man. Stepping forward, he silently replaced the lid he had been holding.
This forced a word from Edgar.
“We will not dispute authority in this presence or disagree as to the action you propose. Let some one call Dr. Cameron.”
“It is not necessary,” announced a voice from the staircase. “That has already been done.” And Orpha, erect, and showing none of the weakness which had so nearly laid her at my feet a few minutes before, stepped into our midst.
Such transformations are not common, and can only occur in strong natures under the stress of a sudden emergency. With what rejoicing I hailed this new Orpha, and marked the surprise on every face as she bent over the casket and imprinted a kiss upon the cold wood which shut in the heart which had so loved her. When she faced them again, not an eye but showed a tear; only her own were dry. But ah, how steady!
Edgar, who had started forward, stopped stock-still as she raised her hand. No statue of even-handed Justice could have shown a calmer front. I could have worshiped her, and did in my inmost heart; for I saw with a feeling of awe which I am sure was shared by many others there, that she whom we had seen blossom from girl to womanhood in a moment, was to be trusted, and that she would do what was right because it was right and not from any less elevated motive.
That she was beautiful thus, with a beauty which put her girlhood’s charms to blush, did not detract from her power.
Eagerly we waited for what she had to say. When it came it was very simple.
“I can understand,” said she, “the shock you have all sustained. But I ask you to wait before you accept the awful suggestion conveyed by my poor Martha’s words. She had a dreadful experience once and naturally was thrown off her balance by anything which brought it to mind. But the phenomenon which she once witnessed in her brother—under very different circumstances I am sure—isno proof that a like cause is answerable for what we see disfiguring the face we so much love. Let us hear what Dr. Cameron has to say before we associate evil with a death which in itself is hard enough to bear. Edgar, will you bring me a chair. I shall not leave my father’s side till Dr. Cameron bids me do so.”
He did not hear her; that is, not attentively enough to do her bidding. He was looking again at Miss Colfax, who was speaking in whispers to the man she was engaged to; and in the pride of my devotion it was I who brought a chair and saw my dear one seated.
Her “Thank you,” was even and not unkind but it held no warmth. Nor did the same words afterwards addressed to Edgar at some trifling service he showed her. She was holding the balance of her favor at rest between us; and so she would continue to hold it till her duty became clear and Providence itself tipped the scale.
Thus far it was given me to penetrate her mind. Was it through my love for her or because the rectitude of her nature was so apparent in that high hour?
Dr. Cameron not being able to come immediately upon call, the few outsiders who were present took their leave after a voluntary promise by each and all to preserve a rigid silence concerning the events of the evening until released by official authority.
The grace with which Edgar accepted this token of friendship showed him at his best. But when they were gone it was quite another Edgar who faced us in the great court. With hasty glance, he took in all our faces, then turned his attention upward to the gallery where Clarke and Wealthy still stood.
“No one is to stir from his place while I am gone,” said he. “If the doctor’s ring is heard, let him in. But I am in serious earnest when I say that I expect to see on myreturn every man and woman now present in the precise place in which I leave them.”
His voice was stern, his manner troubled. He was anything but his usual self. Nor was it with his usual suavity he suddenly turned upon me and said:
“Quenton, do you consent?”
“To remain here?” I asked. “Certainly.” Indeed, I had no other wish.
But Orpha was not of my mind. With a glance at Edgar as firm as it was considerate, she quietly said:
“You should allow yourself no privilege which you deny to Quenton. If for any reason you choose to leave us for purposes you do not wish to communicate, you must take him with you.”
The flush which this brought to his cheek was the first hint of color I had seen there since the evening began.
“This from you, Orpha?” he muttered. “You would place this stranger—”
“Where my father put him,—on a level with yourself. But why leave us, Edgar? Why not wait till the doctor comes?”
They were standing near each other but they now stepped closer.
Instinctively I turned my back. I even walked away from them. When I wheeled about again, I saw that they were both approaching me.
“Iam going up with Edgar,” said she. “Will you sit in my place till I come back?”
“Gladly, Orpha.” But I wondered what took them above—something important I knew—and watched them with jealous eyes as in their ascent their bright heads came into view, now through one arch and now through another, till they finally emerged, he leading, she following, upon the gallery.
Here they paused to speak to Clarke and Wealthy. A word, and Clarke stepped back, allowing Wealthy to slip up ahead of them to the third floor.
They were going to Uncle’s room of which Wealthy had the key.
Deliberately I wheeled about; deliberately I forebore to follow their movements any further, even in fancy. Prudence forbade such waste of emotion. I would simply forget everything but my present duty, which was to hold every lesser inmate of the house in view, till these two had returned or the doctor arrived.
But when I heard them coming, no exercise of my own will was strong enough to prevent me from concentrating my attention on the gallery to which they must soon descend. They reached it as they had left it, Edgar to the fore and Orpha and Wealthy following slowly after. A momentary interchange of words and Wealthy rejoined Clarke, and Edgar and Orpha came steadily down. There was nothing to be learned from their countenances; but I had a feeling that their errand had brought them no relief; that the situation had not been bettered and that what we all needed was courage to meet the developments awaiting us.
I was agreeably disappointed therefore, when the doctor, having arrived, met the first hasty words uttered by Edgar with an incredulous shrug. Nor did he show alarm or even surprise when after lifting the lid from the casket he took a prolonged look at the august countenance thus exposed. It was not until he had replaced this lid and paused for a moment in thoughtful silence that I experienced a fresh thrill of doubt and alarm. This however passed when the doctor finally said:
“Discolorations such as you see here, however soon they appear, are in themselves no proof that poison has enteredthe stomach. There are other causes which might easily induce them. But, since the question has been raised—since, in the course of my treatment poison in careful doses has been administered to Mr. Bartholomew, of which poison there probably remained sufficient to have hastened death, if inadvertently given by an inexperienced hand, it might be well to look into the matter. It would certainly be a comfort to you all to know that no such accident has taken place.”
Here his eyes, which had been fixed upon the casket, suddenly rose. I knew—perhaps others did—where his glance would fall first. Though an excellent man and undoubtedly a just one, he could not fail to have been influenced by what he must have heard in town of the two wills and the part I had played in unsettling my uncle’s mind in regard to his testamentary intentions. If under the doctor’s casual manner there existed anything which might be called doubt, it would be—must be—centered upon the man who was a stranger, unloved and evidently distrusted by all in this house.
Convinced as I was of this, I could not prevent the cold perspiration from starting out on my forehead, nor Orpha from seeing it, or, seeing it, drawing a step or two further off. Fate and my temperament—the susceptibility of which I had never realized till now,—were playing me false. Physical weakness added to all the rest! I was in sorry case.
As I nerved myself to meet the strain awaiting me, it came. The doctor’s gaze met mine, his keen with questioning, mine firm to meet and defy his or any other man’s misjudgment.
No word was spoken nor was any attempt at greeting made by him or by myself. But when I saw those honest eyes shift their glance from my face to whomever it waswho stood beside me, I breathed as a man breathes who, submerged to the point of exhaustion, suddenly finds himself tossed again into the light of day and God’s free air.
The relief I felt added to my self-scorn. Then I forgot my own sensations in wondering how others would hold up against this ordeal and what my thoughts would be—remembering how nearly I had come to losing my own self-possession—if I beheld another man’s lids droop under a soul search so earnest and so prolonged.
Shrinking from so stringent a test of my own generosity I turned aside, not wishing to see anything further, only to hear.
Had I looked—looked in the right place, this story might never have been written; but I only listened—held my breath and listened for a break—any break—in the too heavy silence.
It came just as my endurance had reached the breaking-point. Dr. Cameron spoke, addressing Edgar.
“The funeral I understand is to be held to-morrow. At what hour, may I ask?”
“At eleven in the morning.”
“It will have to be postponed. Though there is little probability of any change being necessary in the wording of the death-certificate; yet it is possible and I must have time to consider.”
It was just and proper. But only Orpha had the courage to speak—to seek to probe his mind—to sound the depths of this household’s misery. Orpha! whom to guard from the mere disagreeabilities of life were a man’s coveted delight!Sheour leader? The one to take her stand in the breach yawning between the old life and the new?
“You mean,” she forced herself to say, “that what had happened to Martha’s brother may have happened to my beloved father?”
“I doubt it, but we must make sure. A poison capable of producing death was in this house. You know that; others knew it. I had warned you all concerning it. I made it plain, I thought, that small doses taken according to prescription were helpful, but that increased beyond a certain point, they meant death. You remember, Orpha?”
She bowed her head.
“And you, Edgar and Quenton?”
We did, alas!
“And his nurses, and the man Clarke, all who were at liberty to enter his room?”
“They knew.” It was Orpha who spoke. “I called their attention to what you had said more than once.”
“Is the phial containing that poison still in the house? I have not ordered it lately.”
“It is. Edgar and I have just been up to see. We found it among the other bottles in the medicine cabinet.”
“When did he receive the last dose of it under my instructions?”
“Wealthy can tell you. She kept very close watch of that bottle.”
“Wealthy,” he called, with a glance towards the gallery, “come down. I have a question or two to put to you.”
She obeyed him quickly, almost eagerly.
The other servants, Clarke alone excepted, came creeping from their corner as they saw her enter amongst us and stand in her quiet respectful way before the doctor.
He greeted her kindly; she had always been a favorite of his; then spoke up quickly:
“Mr. Bartholomew died too soon, Wealthy. We should have had him with us for another fortnight. What was the cause of it, do you know? A wrong dose? A repeated dose? One bottle mistaken for another?”
Her eyes, filled with tears, rose slowly to his face.
“I cannot say. The last time I saw that bottle it was at the very back of the shelf where I had pushed it after you had said he was to have no more of it at present. It was in the same place when we went up just now to see if it had been taken from the cabinet. It did not look as though it had been moved.”
“Holding the same amount as when you saw it last?”
“To allappearance, yes, sir.”
What was there in her tone or in the little choke which followed these few words which made the doctor stare a moment, then open his lips to speak and then desist with a hasty glance at Edgar? I had myself felt the shiver of some new fear at her manner and the unconscious emphasis she had given to that wordappearance. But was it the same fear which held him back from pursuing his inquiries, and led him to say instead:
“I should like to see that bottle. No,” he remonstrated, as Orpha started to accompany him. “You are a brave girl, but it is not for your physician to abuse that bravery.Wealthy will go up with me. Meantime, let Edgar take you away to some spot where you can rest till I come back.”
It was kindly meant but oh, how hard I felt it to see these two draw off like accepted lovers; and with what joy I beheld them stop, evidently at a word from her, and seat themselves on one of the leather-covered lounges drawn up against the wall well within the sight of every one there.
I could rest, with these two sitting thus in full view—rest in the present; the future must take care of itself.
The result of the doctor’s visit to the room above was evident in the increased gravity he showed on his return. He had little to say beyond enjoining upon Edgar and Orpha the necessity for a delay in the funeral services and a suggestion that we separate at once for the night and get what sleep we could. He would send a man to sit by the dead and if we would control ourselves sufficiently not to discuss this unhappy event all might yet be well.
The picture he made with Orpha as he took his leave of her at the door remains warm in my memory. She had begun to droop and he saw it. To comfort her he took her two hands in his and drew them to his breast while he talked to her, softly but firmly. As I saw the confidence with which she finally received his admonitions, I blessed him in my heart; though with a man’s knowledge of men I perceived that his endeavor to give comfort sprang from sympathy rather than conviction. Tragedy was in the house, veiled and partially hidden, but waiting—waiting for the full recognition which the morrow must bring. A shadow with a monstrous substance behind it we would be called upon to face!
For one wild instant I wished that I had never left my native land; never seen the great Bartholomew; never felt the welcoming touch of Orpha’s little hand on mine. As I knelt again in my open window a half hour later, thestar which had shone in upon me two hours before had vanished in clouds.
Darkness was in the sky, darkness was in the house, darkness was in my own soul, and saddest of all, darkness was in that of our lovely and innocent Orpha.
The next day was one of almost unendurable apprehension. Edgar, Orpha and myself could not face each other. The servants could not face us. If we moved from our rooms and by chance met in any of the halls we gazed at each other like specters and like specters flitted by without a word.
Orpha had a friend with her or I could not have stood it. For a long time I did not know who this friend was; then from some whisper I heard echoing up my convenient little stairway I learned that it was Lucy Colfax, Edgar’s real love and Dr. Hunter’s fiancée.
I did not like it. Such companionship was incongruous and unnatural; an insult to Orpha, though the dear child did not know it; but if she found relief in the presence of the one woman who, next to herself, stood in the closest relation to him who was gone, why should I complain so long as I myself could do nothing to comfort her or assuage her intolerable grief and the suspense of this terrible day.
I did not fear that Edgar would make a third. Neither he nor Orpha were ready for talk. None of us were till the doctor’s report was known and the fearful question settled. I heard afterwards that Edgar had spent most of the time in the great room upstairs staring into the corners and seeming to ask from the walls the secret they refused to give.
I did the same in mine, only I paced the floor counting the slow hours as they went by. I am always restless under suspense and movement was my only solace.
What if the report should be one of which I dared notthink—dared not mention to myself. What then? What if the roof of the house in which I stood should thunder in and the great stones of the walls fall to the ground and desolation ravish the spot where life, light and beauty reigned in such triumph. I would go down with it, that I knew; but would others? Would that one other whom to save—
Was it coming? The whole house had been so still that the least sound shook me. And it was aleastsound. A low but persistent knocking at my door.
I was at the other end of the room and the distance from where I stood to the door looked interminable. I must know—know instantly; I could not wait another moment. Raising my voice, or endeavoring to, I called out:
“Come in.”
It was a mere whisper; ghostly hands were about my throat. But that whisper was heard. I saw the door open and a quiet appearing man,—a complete stranger to me—stepped softly in.
I knew him for what he was before he spoke a word.
The police were in the house. There was no need to ask what the doctor’s report had been.
It is not my intention, and I am sure it is not your wish, that I should give all the details leading up to the inevitable inquest which followed the discoveries of the physicians and the action of the police.
In the first place my pride, possibly my self-respect held me back from any open attempt to acquaint myself with them. My interview with the Inspector of which I have just made mention, added much to his knowledge but very little to mine. To his questions I gave replies as truthful as they were terse. When I could, I confined myself to facts and never obtruded sentiment unless pressed as it were to the wall. He was calm, reasonable and not without consideration; but he got everything from me that he really wanted and at times forced me to lay my soul bare. In return, I caught, as I thought, faint glimmers now and then of how the mind of the police was working, only to find myself very soon in a fog where I could see nothing distinctly. When he left, the strongest impression which remained with me was that in the terrible hours I saw before me my greatest need would be courage and my best weapon under attack the truth as I knew it. In this conclusion I rested.
But not without a feeling which was as new to me as it was disturbing. I could not leave my room without sensing that somewhere, unseen and unheard, there lingered a presence from whose watchfulness I could not hope to escape. If in passing towards the main hall, I paused at the little circular staircase outside my door for one look down at the marble-floored pavement beneath, it was withthe consciousness that an ear was somewhere near which recognized the cessation of my steps and waited to hear them recommence.
So in the big halls. Every door was closed, so slight the movement, so unfrequent any passing to and fro in the great house during the two days which elapsed before the funeral. But to heave a sigh or show in any way the character or trend of my emotions was just as impossible to me as though the walls were lined with spectators and every blank panel I passed was a sounding-board to some listener beyond.
Once only did I allow myself the freedom natural to a mourner in the house of the dead. Undeterred by an imaginary or even an actual encounter with unsympathetic servant or interested police operative, I left my room on the second day and went below; my goal, the court, my purpose, to stand once more by the remains of all that was left to me of my great-hearted uncle.
If I met any one on the way I have no memory of it. Had Orpha flitted by, or Edgar stumbled upon me at the turn of a corner, I might have stayed my step for an instant in outward deference to a grief which I recognized though I was not supposed to share it. But of others I took no account nor do I think I so much as lifted my eyes or glanced to right or left, when having crossed the tessellated pavement of the court, I paused by the huge mound of flowers beneath which lay what I sought, and thrusting my hand among these tokens of love and respect till I touched the wood beneath, swore that whatever the future held for me of shame or its reverse, I would act according to what I believed to be the will of him now dead but who for me was still a living entity.
This done I returned as I had come, only with a lighter step, for some portion of the peace for which I longed hadfallen upon me with the utterance of that solemn promise.
I shall give but one incident in connection with the funeral. To my amazement I was allotted a seat in the carriage with Edgar. Orpha rode with some relatives of her mother—people I had never seen.
Though there was every chance for Edgar and myself to talk, nothing more than a nod passed between us. It was better so; I was glad to be left to my own thoughts. In the church I noted no one; but at the grave I became aware of an influence which caused me to turn my head a trifle aside and meet the steady look of a middle-aged man who was contemplating me very gravely.
Taking in his lineaments with a steady look of my own, I waited till I had the opportunity to point him out to one of the undertaker’s men when I learned that he was a well-known lawyer by the name of Jackson, and instantly became assured that he was no other than the man who had drawn up the second will—the will which I had been led to believe was strongly in my favor.
As his interest in me was to all appearance of a kindly sort untinged by suspicion, I felt that perhaps the odds after all, were not so greatly against me. Here was a man ready to help me, and should I need a friend, Providence had certainly shown me in what direction to look.
That night I slept the best of any night since the shock which had unhinged the nerves of every one in the house. I had ascertained that the full name of the lawyer who had been instrumental in drawing up the second will was Frederick W. Jackson, and while uttering this name more than once to myself, I fell into a dreamless slumber.