XVII
UNWELCOME TRUTHS
Silence. Yes, silence was the one and only refuge remaining to her. Yet,after a few days, the constant self-restraint which it entailed, atelike a canker into her peace, and undermined a strength which she hadalways considered inexhaustible. Reuther began to notice her pallor, andthe judge to look grave. She was forced to complain of a cold (and inthis she was truthful enough) to account for her alternations offeverish impulse and deadly lassitude.
The trouble she had suppressed was having its quiet revenge. Should shecontinue to lie inert and breathless under the threatening hand of Fate,or risk precipitating the doom she sought to evade, by proceeding withinquiries upon the result of which she could no longer calculate?
She recalled the many mistakes made by those who had based theirconclusions upon circumstantial evidence (her husband's conviction infact) and made up her mind to brave everything by having this matter outwith Mr. Black. Then the pendulum swung back, and she found that shecould not do this because, deep down in her heart, there burrowed amonstrous doubt (how born or how cherished she would not question),which Mr. Black, with an avidity she could not combat, would at oncedetect and pounce upon. Better silence and a slow death than that.
But was there no medium course? Could she not learn from some othersource where Oliver had been on the night of that old-time murder? MissWeeks was a near neighbour and saw everything. Miss Weeks neverforgot;--to Miss Weeks she would go.
With instructions to Reuther calculated to keep that diligent childabsorbed and busy in her absence, she started out upon her quest. Shehad reached the first gate, passed it and was on the point of openingthe second one, when she saw on the walk before her a small slip ofbrown paper. Lifting it, she perceived upon it an almost illegiblescrawl which she made out to read thus:--
For Mrs. Scoville:
Do not go wandering all over the town for clews. Look closer home.
And below:
You remember the old saying about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Let your daughter be warned. It is better to be singed than consumed.
Warned! Reuther? Better be singed than consumed? What madness was this?How singed and how consumed? Then because Deborah's mind was quick, itall flashed upon her, bowing her in spirit to the ground. Reuther hadbeen singed by the knowledge of her father's ignominy, she would beconsumed if inquiry were carried further and this ignominy transferredto the proper culprit. CONSUMED! There was but one person whose disgracecould consume Reuther. Oliver alone could be meant. The doubts she hadtried to suppress from her own mind were shared by others,--OTHERS!
The discovery overpowered her and she caught herself crying aloud inutter self-abandonment:
"I will not go to Miss Weeks. I will take Reuther and fly to somewilderness so remote and obscure that we can never be found."
Yet in five minutes she was crossing the road, her face composed, hermanner genial, her tongue ready for any encounter. The truth must behers at all hazards. If it could be found here, then here would she seekit. Her long struggle with fate had brought to the fore every latentpower she possessed.
One stroke on the tiny brass knocker, old-fashioned and quaint likeeverything else in this doll-house, brought Miss Weeks' small andanimated figure to the door. She had seen Mrs. Scoville coming, and wasready with her greeting. A dog from the big house across the way wouldhave been welcomed there. The eager little seamstress had neverforgotten her hour in the library with the half-unconscious judge.
"Mrs. Scoville!" she exclaimed, fluttering and leading the way into thebest room; "how very kind you are to give me this chance for making myapologies. You know we have met before."
"Have we?" Mrs. Scoville did not remember, but she smiled her best smileand was gratified to note the look of admiration with which Miss Weekssurveyed her more than tasty dress before she raised her eyes to meetthe smile to whose indefinable charm so many had succumbed. "It is along time since I lived here," Deborah proceeded as soon as she saw thatshe had this woman, too, in her net. "The friends I had then, I scarcelyhope to have now; my trouble was of the kind which isolates onecompletely. I am glad to have you acknowledge an old acquaintance. Itmakes me feel less lonely in my new life."
"Mrs. Scoville, I am only too happy." It was bravely said, for thelittle woman was in a state of marked embarrassment. Could it be thather visitor had not recognised her as the person who had accosted her onthat memorable morning she first entered Judge Ostrander's forbiddengates?
"I have been told--" thus Deborah easily proceeded, "that for a smallhouse yours contains the most wonderful assortment of interestingobjects. Where did you ever get them?"
"My father was a collector, on a very small scale of course, and mymother had a passion for hoarding which prevented anything from goingout of this house after it had once come into it,--and a great manystrange things have come into it. There have even been bets made as tothe finding or not finding of a given object under this roof. Pardon me,perhaps I bore you."
"Not at all. It's very interesting. But what about the bets?"
"Oh, just this. One day two men were chaffing each other in one of thehotel lobbies, and the conversation turning upon what this house held,one of them wagered that he knew of something I could not fish out of myattic, and when the other asked what, he said an aeroplane--Why hedidn't say a locomotive, I don't know; but he said an aeroplane, and theother, taking him up, they came here together and put me the questionstraight. Mrs. Scoville, you may not believe it, but my good friend wonthat bet. Years ago when people were just beginning to talk aboutair-sailing machines, my brother who was visiting me, amused his leisurehours in putting together something he called a 'flyer.' And what ismore, he went up in it, too, but he came down so rapidly that he keptquite still about it, and it fell to me to lug the broken thing in. Sowhen these gentlemen asked to see an aeroplane, I took them into alean-to where I store my least desirable things, and there pointed out amass of wings and bits of tangled wire, saying as dramatically as Icould: 'There she is!' And they first stared, then laughed; and when onecomplained: 'That's a ruin, not an aeroplane,' I answered with all thedemureness possible; 'and what is any aeroplane but a ruin in prospect?This has reached the ruin stage; that's all.' So the bet was paid and myreputation sustained. Don't you find it a little amusing?"
"I do, indeed," smiled Deborah. "Now, if I wanted to make the test, Ishould take another course from these men. I should not pick outsomething strange, or big, or unlikely. I should choose some every-dayobject, some little matter--" She paused as if to think.
"What little matter?" asked the other complacently.
"My husband once had a cap," mused Mrs. Scoville thoughtfully. "It hadan astonishingly broad peak in front. Have you a cap like that?"
Miss Weeks' eyes opened. She stared in some consternation at Mrs.Scoville, who hastened to say:
"You wonder that I can mention my husband. Perhaps you will not be sosurprised when I tell you that in my eyes he is a martyr, and quiteguiltless of the crime for which he was punished."
"You think that?" There was real surprise in the manner of thequestioner. Mrs. Scoville's brow cleared. She was pleased at this proofthat her affairs had not yet reached the point of general gossip.
"Miss Weeks, I am a mother. I have a young and lovely daughter. Can Ilook in her innocent eyes and believe her father to have so forgottenhis responsibilities as to overshadow her life with crime? No, I willnot believe it. Circumstances were in favour of his conviction, but henever lifted the stick which struck down Algernon Etheridge."
Miss Weeks, who had sat quite still during the utterance of theseremarks, fidgetted about at their close, with what appeared to thespeaker, a sudden and quite welcome relief.
"Oh!" she murmured; and said no more. It was not a topic she found easyof discussion.
"Let us go back to the cap," suggested Deborah, with another of herfascinating smiles. "Are you going to show me one such as I havedescribe
d?"
"Let me see. A man's cap with an extra broad peak! Mrs. Scoville, I fearthat you have caught me. There are caps hanging up in various closets,but I don't remember any with a peak beyond the ordinary."
"Yet they are worn? You have seen such?"
A red spot sprang out on the faded cheek of the woman as she answeredimpulsively:
"Oh, yes. Young Mr. Oliver Ostrander used to wear one. I wish I hadasked him for it," she pursued, naively. "I should not have had toacknowledge defeat at your very first inquiry."
"Oh! you needn't care about that," laughed Deborah, in rather a hardtone for her. She had made her point, but was rather more frightenedthan pleased at her success. "There must be a thousand articles younaturally would lack. I could name--"
"Don't, don't!" the little woman put in breathlessly. "I have many oddthings but of course not everything. For instance--" But here she caughtsight of the other's abstracted eye, and dropped the subject. Thesadness which now spread over the very interesting countenance of hervisitor, offered her an excuse for the introduction of a far moremomentous topic; one she had burned to introduce but had not known how.
"Mrs. Scoville, I hear that Judge Ostrander has got your daughter apiano. That is really a wonderful thing for him to do. Not that he is soclose with his money, but that he has always been so set against allgaiety and companionship. I suppose you did not know the shock it wouldbe to him when you asked Bela to let you into the gates."
"No! I didn't know. But it is all right now. The judge seems to welcomethe change. Miss Weeks, did you know Algernon Etheridge well enough totell me if he was as good and irreproachable a man as they all say?"
"He was a good man, but he had a dreadfully obstinate streak in hisdisposition and very set ideas. I have heard that he and the judge usedto argue over a point for hours. And he was most always wrong. Forinstance, he was wrong about Oliver."
"Oliver?"
"Judge Ostrander's son, you know. Mr. Etheridge wanted him to study fora professorship; but the boy was determined to go into journalism, andyou see what a success he has made of it. As a professor he wouldprobably have been a failure."
"Was this difference of opinion on the calling he should pursue, thecause of Oliver's leaving home in the way he did?" continued Deborah,conscious of walking on very thin ice.
But Miss Weeks rather welcomed than resented this curiosity. Indeed shewas never tired of enlarging upon the Ostranders. It was, therefore,with a very encouraging alacrity she responded:
"I have never thought so. The judge would not quarrel with Oliver on sosmall a point as that. My idea is, though I never talk of it much, thatthey had a great quarrel over Mr. Etheridge. Oliver never liked the oldstudent; I've watched them and I've seen. He hated his coming to thehouse so much; he hated the way his father singled him out and deferredto him and made him the confidant of all his troubles. When they went ontheir walks, Oliver always hung back, and more than once I have seen himmake a grimace of distaste when his father urged him forward. He wasonly a boy, I know, but his dislikes meant something, and if it everhappened that he spoke out his whole mind, you may be sure that somevery bitter words passed."
Was this meant as an innuendo? Could it be that she shared the veryserious doubts of Deborah's anonymous correspondent?
Impossible to tell. Such nervous, fussy little bodies often possessminds of unexpected subtlety. Deborah gave up all hope of understandingher, and, accepting her statements at their face value, effusivelyremarked:
"You must have a very superior mind to draw such conclusions from thelittle you have seen. I have heard many explanations given for thebreach you name, but never any so reasonable."
A flash from the spinster's wary eye, then a burst of courage and thequick retort:
"And what explanation does Oliver himself give? You ought to know, Mrs.Scoville."
The attack was as sudden as it was unexpected. Deborah flushed andtrimmed her sails for this new tack, and insinuating gently, "Then youhave heard--" waited for the enlightenment these words were likely toevoke.
It came quickly enough.
"That he expected to marry your daughter? Oh, yes, Mrs. Scoville; it'sthe common talk here now. I hope you don't mind my mentioning it."
Deborah's head went up. She faced the other fairly, with the look bornof mother passion, and mother passion only.
"Reuther is blameless in this matter," she protested. "She was broughtup in ignorance of what I felt sure would prove a handicap and misery toher. She loves Oliver as she will never love any other man, but when shewas told her real name and understood fully what that name carries withit, she declined to saddle him with her shame. That's her story, MissWeeks; one that hardly fits her appearance which is very delicate. And,let me add, having once accepted her father's name, she refuses to beknown by any other. I have brought her to Shelby where to our ownsurprise and Reuther's great happiness, we have been taken in by JudgeOstrander, an act of kindness for which we are very grateful." MissWeeks got up, took down one of her rarest treasures from an old etagerestanding in one corner and laid it in Mrs. Scoville's hand.
"For your daughter," she declared. "Noble girl! I hope she will behappy."
The mother was touched. But not quite satisfied yet of the giver's realfeelings towards Oliver, she was not willing to conclude the interviewuntil she understood her small hostess better. She, therefore, lookedadmiringly at the vase (it was really choice); and, after thanking itsdonor warmly, proceeded to remark:
"There is but one thing that will ever make Reuther happy, and that shecannot have unless a miracle occurs."
"Oliver?" suggested the other, with a curious, wan little smile.
Deborah nodded.
"And what miracle--"
"Oh, I do not wonder you pause. This is not the day of miracles. But ifmy belief in my husband could be shared; if by some fortuitous chance Ishould be enabled to clear his name, might not love and loyalty be leftto do the rest? Wouldn't the judge's objections, in that case, beremoved? What do you think, Miss Weeks?"
The warmth, the abandon, the confidence she expressed in this finalquestion were indescribable. Miss Weeks' conventional mannerisms meltedbefore it. She could no more withstand the witchery of this woman's toneand manner than if she had been a man subdued by the charm of sex. Butnothing, not even her newly awakened sympathy for this agreeable woman,could make her untruthful. She might believe in the miracle of areversal of judgment in the case of a falsely condemned criminal, butnot of an Ostrander accepting humiliation, even at the hands of Love.She felt that in justice to this new friendship she should say so.
"Do you ask me?" she began. "Then I feel that I must admit to you thatthe Ostrander pride is proverbial. Oliver may think he would be happy ifhe married your daughter under these changed conditions; but I should befearful of the reaction which would certainly follow when he found thatold shames are not so easily outlived. There is temper in the family,though you would never think it to hear the judge speak; and if yourdaughter is delicate--"
"Is it of her you are thinking?" interrupted Deborah, with a new tone inher voice.
"Not altogether; you see I knew Oliver first."
"And are fond of him?"
"Fond is a big word. But I cannot help having some feeling for the boy Ihave seen grow up from a babe in arms to a healthy, brilliant manhood."
"And having this feeling--" "There! we will say no more about it." Thelittle woman's attitude and voice were almost prayerful. "You havejudgment enough for two. Besides the miracle has not happened," sheinterjected, with a smile which seemed to say it never would be.
Deborah sighed. Whether or not it was quite an honest expression of herfeeling we will not inquire. She was there for a definite purpose andher way to it was, as yet, far from plain. All that she had reallylearned was this: that it was she, and not Miss Weeks who was playing apart, and that whatever her inquiries, she need have no fear of rousingsuspicion against Oliver in a mind already dominated by a belief in JohnScovil
le's guilt. The negative with which she followed up this sigh wasconsequently one of sorrowful acceptance. She made haste, however, toqualify it with the remark:
"But I have not given up all hope. My cause is too promising. True, Imay not succeed in marrying Reuther into the Ostrander family, even ifit should be my good lot to clear her father's name; but my effortswould have one good result, as precious--perhaps more precious than theone I name. She would no longer have to regard that father as guilty ofa criminal act. If such relief can be hers she should have it. But howam I to proceed? I know as well as any one how impossible the task mustprove, unless I can light upon fresh evidence. And where am I to getthat? Only from some new witness."
Miss Weeks' polite smile took on an expression of indulgence. Thisroused Deborah's pride, and, hesitating no longer, she anxiouslyremarked:
"I have sometimes thought that Oliver Ostrander might be that witness.He certainly was in the ravine the night Algernon Etheridge was struckdown."
Had she been an experienced actress of years she could not have throwninto this question a greater lack of all innuendo. Miss Weeks, alreadyunder her fascination, heard the tone but never thought to notice thequick rise and fall of her visitor's uneasy bosom, and so unwarned,responded with all due frankness:
"I know he was. But how will that help you? He had no testimony to givein relation to this crime, or he would have given it."
"That is true." The admission fell mechanically from Deborah's lips; shewas not conscious, even, of making it. She was struggling with the shockof the simple statement, confirming her own fears that Oliver hadactually been in the ravine at the hour of Etheridge's murder. "Not evena boy would hide knowledge of that kind," she stumblingly continued.Then, as her emotion choked her into silence, she sat with piteous eyessearching Miss Weeks' face, till she had recovered her voice, when sheadded this vital question:
"How did you know that Oliver was in the ravine that night? I onlyguessed it."
"Well, it was in this way. I do not often keep my eye on my neighbours(oh, no, Miss Weeks!), but that night I chanced to be looking over theway just at the minute Mr. Etheridge came out, and something I saw inhis manner and in that of the judge who had followed him to the door,and in that of Oliver who, cap on head, was leaning towards them from awindow over the porch, made me think that a controversy was going onbetween the two old people of which Oliver was the subject. Thisnaturally interested me, and I watched them long enough to see Oliversuddenly raise his fist and shake it at old Etheridge; then, in greatrage, slam down the window and disappear inside. The next minute, andbefore the two below had done talking; I caught another glimpse of himas he dashed around the corner of the house on his way to the ravine."
"And Mr. Etheridge?"
"Oh, he left soon after. I watched him as he went by, his long cloakflapping in the wind. Little did I think he would never pass my windowagain."
So interested were they both, the one in telling to new and sympatheticears the small experiences of her life, the other in listening for thechance phrase or the unconscious admission which would fix the suspicionalready struggling into strong life within her breast, that neither forthe moment realised the strangeness of the situation or that it was inconnection with a crime for which the husband of one of them hadsuffered, they were raking up this past, and gossiping over its pettydetails. Possibly recollection returned to them both, when Mrs. Scovillesighed and said:
"It couldn't have been very long after you saw him that Mr. Etheridgewas struck?"
"Only some twenty minutes. It takes just that long for a man to walkfrom this corner to the bridge."
"And you never heard where Oliver went?"
"It was never talked about at the time. Later, when some hint got aboutof his having been in the ravine that night, he said he had gone up theravine not down it. And we all believed him, madam."
"Of course, of course. What a discriminating mind you have, Miss Weeks,and what a wonderful memory! To think that after all these years you canrecall that Oliver had a cap on his head when he looked out of thewindow at his father and Mr. Etheridge. If you were asked, I have nodoubt you could tell its very colour. Was it the peaked one?--the likeof which you haven't in your marvelous collection?"
"Yes, I could swear to it." And Miss Weeks gave a little laugh, whichsounded incongruous enough to Deborah in whose heart at that moment, aleaf was turned upon the past, which left the future hopelessly blank.
"Must you go?" Deborah had risen mechanically. "Don't, I beg, till youhave relieved my mind about Judge Ostrander. I don't suppose that thereis really anything behind that door of his which it would alarm any oneto see?"
Then, Deborah understood Miss Weeks.
But she was ready for her.
"I've never seen anything of the sort," said she, "and I make up his bedin that very room every morning."
"Oh!" And Miss Weeks drew a deep breath. "No article of immense valuesuch as that rare old bit of real Satsuma in the cabinet over there?"
"No," answered Deborah, with all the patience she could muster. "JudgeOstrander seems very simple in his tastes. I doubt if he would knowSatsuma if he saw it."
Miss Weeks sighed. "Yes, he has never expressed the least wish to lookover my shelves. So the double fence means nothing?"
"A whim," ejaculated Deborah, making quietly for the door. "The judgelikes to walk at night when quite through with his work; and he doesn'tlike his ways to be noted. But he prefers the lawn now. I hear his stepout there every night."
"Well, it's something to know that he leads a more normal life thanformerly!" sighed the little lady as she prepared to usher her guestout. "Come again, Mrs. Scoville; and, if I may, I will drop in and seeyou some day."
Deborah accorded her permission and made her final adieux. She felt asif a hand which had been stealing up her chest had suddenly gripped herthroat, choking her. She had found the man who had cast that fatalshadow down the ravine, twelve years before.