CHAPTER XIX
IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM
A prey to fresh agitation, he stepped back to Anitra's side. Surely shemust understand that it was Georgian and not herself about whom he wasmost anxious to hear. But she did not seem to. The smile with which shegreeted him suggested nothing of the past. It spoke only of the future.
"I will learn to be like sister," she impulsively cried out, rising andbeaming brightly upon him. "I will forget the old gipsy ways and MotherDuda's ways, and try to be nice and pretty like my sister. And you shalllearn me to read and write. I've known deaf people who learned. Then Ishall know what you think; now I only know how you feel."
He shook his head, a little sadly, perhaps. There were people who couldteach her these arts, but not he. He had neither the ability, thecourage, nor the patience.
"Then some one shall learn me," she loudly insisted, her cheek flushingand her eye showing an angry spark. "I will not be ignorant always; Iwill not, I will not." And turning, she fled from his side, and he wasleft to think over her story and ask himself for the hundredth time whatit all meant, what his own sensations meant, and what would be theoutcome of conditions so complicated.
The possibly speedy appearance on the scene of Georgian's so-calledbrother did not detract from his difficulty. He felt helpless withoutthe support of Mr. Harper's presence, and spent a very troubled forenoonlistening to the mingled condolences and advice of people who had nointerest in his concerns save such as sprang from curiosity and a morbidcraving for excitement.
At two o'clock occurred the event of which he had been forewarned. Acarriage drove up to the hotel and from it stepped two travelers; oneof them a stranger, the other the man with the twisted jaw. Mr. Ransomadvanced to meet the latter. He was anxious to listen to his firstinquiries and, if possible, be the person to answer them.
He was successful in this. Mr. Hazen no sooner saw him than he accostedhim without ceremony.
"What is this I hear and read about Georgian and her so-called twin?" hecried. "Nothing that I can believe, I want you to know. Georgian may havedrowned herself. That is credible enough. But that the girl we read aboutin the papers and whom she evidently induced to come to this place withher should be the dead girl we called Anitra--why, that is all bosh--atale to deceive the public, and possibly you, but not one to deceive me.The coincidence is much too improbable."
"'There are stranger things in heaven and earth'"--quoted Ransom; butHazen was already in conversation with the group of hotel idlers who hadcrowded up at sound of his loud voice.
After a careful look which had taken in all of their faces, he hadapproached one young fellow, covering the lower part of his face as hedid so.
"Halloo! Yates," he called out. "Don't you remember the day we tied twochickens together, leg to leg, and sent them tumbling down the hill backof old Wylie's barn?"
"Alf Hazen!" shouted the fellow, thus accosted. "Why, I thought you--"
"Dead, eh? Of course you did. So did everybody else. But I've come tolife, you see. With sad marks of battle on me," he continued, droppinghis hand. "You all recognize me?"
"Yes, yes," rose in one acclaim from a dozen or more throats after amoment of awkward uncertainty.
"I know the eyes," vigorously asserted one.
"And the voice," chimed in another. After which rose a confused babel ofejaculations and exclamatory questions, among which one could detect:
"How did it happen, Alf?" "What took off your jaw?" and other equallyfelicitous expressions.
"I'll tell you all about that later," he replied, after silence had in ameasure been restored. "What I want to say now is this. Is it believablethat simultaneously with my own return from the grave another member ofmy family should reappear before you from an older and much more certainburying? I tell you no. The riddle is one which calls for quite anothersolution and I have come to assist you in finding it."
Here he cast a sinister glance at Ransom.
The latter met the implied accusation with singular calmness.
"Any assistance will be welcome," said he, "which will enable us to solvethis very serious problem." Then, as Hazen's lip curled, he added withdignified candor, "I scorn to retort by throwing any doubt on yourassertion of relationship to my lost wife, or the possibility of thesegood people being misled by your confident bearing and a possiblelikeness about the eyes to the boy they knew. But one question I willhazard, and that before we have gone a step further. Why does it seem socredible to you that Georgian, a much loved and loving woman, should haveleaped to a watery death within a week of her marriage? You have juststated that you found no difficulty in that. Does not that statement callfor some explanation? All your old friends here must see that this is mydue as well as hers."
For an instant the man hesitated, but in that instant his hand slippedfrom his mouth over which he had again laid it, and his whole face, withits changed lines and the threatening, almost cruel expression whichthese gave it, appeared in all its combined eagerness and force. A murmurescaped the watchful group about him, but this affected him little. Hiseyes, which he had fixed on Ransom, sharpened a trifle, perhaps, and histone grew a thought more sarcastic as he finally retorted:
"I will explain myself to you but not to this crowd. And not to you tillI am sure of the facts which as yet have reached me only through thenewspapers. Let me hear a full account of what has transpired here sinceyou all came to town. I have an enormous interest in the matter;--afamily interest, as you are well aware for all your badly hiddeninsinuations."
"Follow me," was the quiet reply. "There is a room on this very floorwhere we can talk undisturbed."
Mr. Hazen cast a quick glance behind him at the man who had driven upwith him and whom nobody had noticed till now. Then without a word heseparated himself from the chattering group encircling him and steppedafter Mr. Ransom into the small room where the latter had held his firstmemorable conversation with the lawyer.
"Now," said he as the door swung to behind them, "plain language and nottoo much of it. I have no time to waste, but the truth about Georgian Imust know."
Ransom settled himself. He felt bound to comply with the other's request,but he wished to make sure of not saying too much, or too little. Hazen'sattack had startled him. It revealed one of two things. Either this manof mystery had assumed the offensive to hide his own connection with thistragedy, or his antagonism was an honest one, springing from an utterdisbelief in the circumstances reported to him by the press and suchgossips as he had encountered on his way to Sitford.
With the first possibility he felt himself unable to cope without the aidof Mr. Harper; the second might be met with candor. Should he then becandid with this doubter, relate to him the facts as they had unrolledthemselves before his own eyes;--secret facts--convincing ones--factswhich must prove to him that whether Georgian did or did not lie at thebottom of the mill-stream, the woman now in the house was his sisterAnitra, lost to him and the rest of the family for many years, but nowfound again and restored to her position as a Hazen and Georgian's twin.The discovery might not prove welcome. It would have a tendency to throwMr. Hazen's own claim into the disrepute he would cast on hers. But thisconsideration could have no weight with Mr. Ransom. He decided uponcandor at all costs. It suited his nature best, and it also suited thestrange and doubtful situation. Mr. Harper might have concludeddifferently, but Mr. Harper was not there to give advice; and the matterwould not wait. Little as he understood this Hazen, he recognized that hewas not a man to trifle with. Something would have to be said or done.
Meeting the latter's eye frankly, he remarked:
"I have no wish to keep anything back from you. I am as much struckas you are by the mystery of this whole occurrence. I was as hard toconvince. This is my story. It involves all that is known here with theexception of such facts as have been kept from us by the three partiesdirectly concerned--of which three I consider you one."
As the last four words fell from his lips he looked for some change,slight a
nd hardly perceptible perhaps, in the other's expression. But hewas doomed to disappointment. The steady regard held, nothing moved aboutthe man, not even the hand into which the poor disfigured chin hadfallen. Ransom suppressed a sigh. His task was likely to prove a blindone. He had a sense of stumbling in the dark, but the gaze he had hopedto see falter compelled him to proceed, and he told his story withoutsubterfuge or suppression.
One thing, and only one thing, caused a movement in the set figure beforehim. When he mentioned the will which Georgian had made a few hours priorto her disappearance, Hazen's hand slipped aside from the wound it hadsought to cover, and Ransom caught sight of the sudden throb whichdeepened its hue. It was the one infallible sign that the man was notwholly without feeling, and it had sprung to life at an intimationinvolving _money_.
When his tale was quite finished, he rose. So did Hazen.
"Let us see this girl," suggested the latter.
It was the first word he had spoken since Ransom began his story.
"She is up-stairs. I will go see--"
"No, _we_ will go see. I particularly desire to take her unawares."
Ransom offered no objection. Perhaps he felt interested in the experimenthimself. Together they left the room, together they went up-stairs. Aturmoil of questions followed them from the throng of men and boysgathered in the halls, but they returned no answer and curiosity remainedunsatisfied.
Once in the hall above, Ransom stopped a moment to deliberate. He couldnot enter Anitra's room unannounced, and he could not make her hear byknocking. He must find the landlady.
He knew Mrs. Deo's room. He had had more than one occasion to visit itduring the last two days. With a word of explanation to Hazen, he passeddown the hall and tapped on the last door at the extreme left. No oneanswered, but the door standing ajar, he pushed it quietly open, beinganxious to make sure that Mrs. Deo was not there.
The next moment he was beckoning to Hazen.
"Look!" said he, holding the door open with one hand and pointing withthe other to a young girl sitting on a low stool by the window, mending,or trying to mend, a rent in her skirt.
"Why, that's Georgian!" exclaimed Hazen, and hastily entering heapproached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and outof the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once in the attempt.
"Georgian!" he cried again and yet more emphatically, as he stepped up infront of her.
The young girl failed to notice. Awkwardly drawing her thread out to itsextreme length, she prepared to insert her needle again, when her eyecaught sight of his figure bending over her, and she looked up quietlyand with an air of displeasure, which pleased Ransom,--he could hardlytell why. This was before her eyes reached his face; when they had, itwas touching to see how she tried to hide the shock caused by itsdeformity, as she said with a slight gesture of dismissal:
"I'm quite deaf. I cannot hear what you say. If it is the landlady youwant, she has gone down-stairs for a minute; perhaps, to the kitchen."
He did not retreat, if anything he approached nearer, and Ransom wassurprised to observe the force and persuasive power of his expressionas he repeated:
"No nonsense, Georgian," opening and shutting his hands as he spoke, incurious gesticulations which her eye mechanically followed but whichseemed to convey no meaning to her, though he evidently expected them toand looked surprised (Ransom almost thought baffled) when she shook herhead and in a sweet, impassive way reiterated:
"I cannot hear and I do not understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. I'msorry, but you'll have to go to some one else. I'm very unfortunate. Ihave to mend this dress and I don't know how."
Hazen, who could hardly tear his eyes from her face, fell slowly back asshe painfully and conscientiously returned to her task. "Good God!" hemurmured, as his eye sought Ransom's. "What a likeness!" Then he lookedagain at the girl, at the wave of her raven black hair breaking intolittle curls just above her ear; at the smooth forehead rendered sodistinguished by the fine penciling of her arching brows; at the delicatenose with nostrils all alive to the beating of an over-anxious heart; atthe mouth, touching in its melancholy so far beyond her years; and lastlyat the strong young figure huddled on the little stool; and bendingforward again, he uttered two or three quick sentences which Ransom couldnot catch.
His persistence, or the near approach of his face to hers, angered her.Rising quickly to her feet, she vehemently cried out:
"Go away from here. It is not right to keep on talking to a deaf girlafter she has told you she cannot hear you." Then catching sight ofRansom, who had advanced a step in his sympathy for her, she gave alittle sigh of relief and added querulously:
"Make this man go away. This is the landlady's room. I don't like to havestrangers talk to me. Besides--" here her voice fell, but not so low asto be inaudible to the subject of her remark, "he's not pretty. I've seenenough of men and women who are--"
At this point Ransom drew Hazen out into the hall.
"What do you think now?" he demanded.
Hazen did not reply. The room they had just left seemed to possess astrange fascination for him. He continued to look back at it as hepreceded Ransom down the hall. Ransom did not press his questions, butwhen they were on the point of separating at the head of the stairs, heheld Hazen back with the words:
"Let us come to some understanding. Neither of us can desire to wastestrength in wrong conclusions. Can that woman be other than your ownsister?"
"No." The denial was absolute. "She is my sister."
"Anitra?" emphasized Ransom.
The smile which he received in reply was strangely mirthless.
"I never rush to conclusions," was Hazen's remark after a moment ofpossibly mutual heart-beat and unsettling suspense. "Ask me that samequestion to-morrow. Perhaps by then I shall be able to answer you."