Domesday Book

ALMA BELL TO THE CORONER

What my name is, or where I live, or if
I am that Alma Bell whose name is broached
With Elenor Murray’s who shall know from this?
My hand-writing I hide in type, I send
This letter through a friend who will not tell.
But first, since no chance ever yet was mine
To speak my heart out, since if I had tried
These fifteen years ago to tell my heart,
I must have failed for lack of words and mind,
I speak my heart out now. I knew the soul
Of Elenor Murray, knew it at the time,
Have verified my knowledge in these years,
Who have not lost her, have kept touch with her
In letters, know the splendid sacrifice
She made in the war. She was a human soul
Earth is not blest with often.

First I say
I knew her when she first came to my class
Turned seventeen just then—such blue-bell eyes,
And such a cataract of dark brown hair,
And such a brow, sweet lips, and such a way
Of talking with a cunning gasp, as if
To catch breath for the words. And such a sense
Of fitness, beauty, delicacy. But more
Such vital power that shook her silver nerves,
And made her dim to others; but to me
She was all sanity of soul, her body,
The instruments of life, were overborne
By that great flame of hers. And if her music
Fell sometimes into discord, which I doubt,
It was her heart-strings which could not vibrate
For human weakness, what the soul of her
Struck for response; and when the strings so failed
She was more grieved than I, or anyone,
Who listened and expected more.

Well, then
What was my love? I am not loath to tell.
I could not touch her hand without a thrill,
Nor kiss her lips but I felt purified,
Exalted in some way. And if fatigue,
The hopeless, daily ills of teaching brought
My spirit to distress, and if I went,
As oftentimes I did, to call upon her
After the school hours, as I heard her step
Responding to my knock, my heart went up,
Her face framed by the opened door—what peace
Was mine to see it, peace ineffable
And rest were mine to sit with her and hear
That voice of hers where breath was caught for words,
That cunning gasp and pause!

I loved her then,
Have loved her always, love her now no less.
I feel her spirit somehow, can take out
Her letters, photograph, and find a joy
That such a soul lived, was in truth my soul,
Must always be my soul.

What was this love?
Why only this, shame nature if you will:
But since man’s body is not man’s alone,
Nor woman’s body wholly feminine,
A biologic truth, our body’s souls
Are neither masculine nor feminine,
But part and part; from whence our souls play forth
Part masculine, part feminine—this woman
Had that of body first which made her soul,
Or made her soul play in its way, and I
Had that of body which made soul of me
Play in its way. Our music met, that’s all,
And harmonized. The flesh’s explanation
Is not important, nor to tell whence comes
A love in the heart—the thing is love at last:
Love which unites and comforts, glorifies,
Enlarges spirit, woos to generous life,
Invites to sacrifice, to service, clothes
This poor dull earth with glory, makes the dawn
An hour of high resolve, the night a hope
For dawn for fuller life, the day a time
For working out the soul in terms of love.
This was my love for Elenor Murray—this
Her love for me, I think. Her sacrifice
In the war I traced to our love—all the good
Her life set into being, into motion
Has in it something of this love of ours.
How good is God who gives us love, the lens
Through which we see the beauty, hid from eyes
That have no love, no lens.

Then what are spirits?
Effluvia material of our bodies?
Or is the spirit all—the body nothing,
Since every atom, particle of matter
With its interstices of soul, divides
Until there is no matter, only soul?
But what is love but of the soul—what flesh
Knows love but through the soul? May it not be
As soul learns love through flesh, it may at last,
Helped on its way by flesh, discard the flesh:—
As cured men leave their crutches—and go on
Loving with spirits. For it seems to me
I must find Elenor Murray as a spirit,
Myself a spirit, love her as I loved her
These years on earth, but with a clearer fire,
Flame that is separate from fuel, burning
Eternal through itself.

And here a word:
My love for Elenor Murray never had
Other expression than the look of eyes,
The spiritual thrill of listening to her voice,
A hand clasp, kiss upon the lips at best,
Better to find her soul, as Plato says.

Too true I left LeRoy under a cloud,
Because of love for Elenor Murray—yet
Not lawless love, I write now to make clear
What love was mine—and you must understand.
But let me tell how life has dealt with me,
Then judge my purpose, dream, the quality
Of Elenor Murray judge, who in some way,
Somehow has drawn me onward, upward too,
I hope, as I have striven.

I did fear
Her safety, and her future, did reprove
Her conduct, its appearance, rather more
In dread of gossip, dread of ways to follow
From such free ways begun at seventeen,
In innocence, out of a vital heart.
But when a bud is opening what stray bees
Come to drag pollen over it, and set
Life going to the end in the fruit of life!
O, my wish was to keep her for some love
To ripen in a rich maturity.
My care proved useless—or shall I say so?
Or anyone say so? since no mind knows
What failure here may somewhere prove a gain.

There was that man who came into her life
With heart unsatisfied, bound to a woman
He wedded early. Elenor Murray’s love
Destroyed this man by human measurements.
And he destroyed her, so they say. But yet
She poured her love upon him, lit her soul
With brighter flames for love of him. At last
She knew no thing but love and sacrifice.
She wrote me last her life was just one pain,
Had always been so from the first, and now
She wished to fling her spirit in the war,
Give, serve, nor count the cost, win death and God
In service in the war—O, loveliest soul
I pray and pray to meet you once again!
So was her life a ruin, was it waste?
She was a prodigal flower that never shut
Its petals, even in darkness, let her soul
Escape when, where it would.

But to myself:
I dragged myself to England from LeRoy
And plunged in life, philosophies of life,
Spinoza and what not, read poetry,
Heard music too, Tschaikowsky, Wagner, all
Who tried to make sound tell the secret thing
That drove me wild in searching love. And lovers
I had one after the other, having fallen
To that belief the way is by the body.
But I was fooled and grew by slow degrees.
And then there came a wild man in my life,
A vagabond, a madman, genius—well,
We both went mad, and I smashed everything,
And ran away, threw all the world for him,
Only to find myself worn out, half dead
At last, as it were out of delirium.
And for four years sat by the sea, or made
Visits to Paris, where I met the man
I married. Then how strange! I gave myself
Wholly to bearing children, just to find
Some explanation of myself, some work
Wholly absorbing, lives to take my love.
And here I was instructed, found a step
For my poor feet to mount by. Though submerged,
Alone too much, my husband not the mate
I dreamed of, hearing echoes in my dreams
Of London and of Paris, sometimes voices
Of lovers lost and vanished; still I’ve found
A peace sometimes, a stay, too, in the innocence
And helplessness of children.

But you see,
In spite of all we do, however high
And fiercely mounts desire, life imposes
Repression, sacrifice, renunciation.
And our poor souls fall muddied in the ditch,
Or take the discipline and live life out.
So Elenor Murray lived and did not fail.
And so it was the knowledge of her life
Kept me in spite of failures at the task
Of holding to my self.

These two months passed
I found I had not killed desire—found
Among a group a chance to try again
For happiness, but knew it was not there.
Then to my children I came back and said:
“Free once again through suffering.” So I prayed:
“Come to me flame of spirit, fire of worship,
Bright fire of song; if I but be myself,
Work through my fate, you shall be mine at last.”...
Then was it that I heard from Elenor Murray—
Such letters, such outpourings of herself!
Poor woman leaving love that could not be
More than it was; how wise she was to fly,
And use that love for service, as she did;
Extract its purest essence for the war,
And ease death with it, merging love and death
Into that mystic union, seen at last
By Elenor Murray.

When I heard she came
All broken from the war, and died somehow
There by the river, then she seemed to me
More near—I seemed to feel her; little zephyrs
Blowing about my face, when I sat looking
Over the sea in my rose bower, seemed
The exhalation of her soul that caught
Its breath for words. I see her in my dreams—
O, my pure soul, what have you been to me,
What must you be hereafter!

But my friend,
And I must call you friend, whose strength in life
Drives you to find economies of spirit,
And save the waste of spirit, you must find
Whatever waste there was of Elenor Murray
Of love or faith, or time, or strength, great gain
In spite of early chances, father, mother,
Too loveless, negligent, or ignorant;
Her mother instinct never blessed with children.
I sometimes think no life is without use—
For even weeds that sow themselves, frost reaped
And matted on the ground, enrich the soil,
Or feed some life. Our eyes must see the end
Of what these growths are for, before we say
Where waste is and where gain.
————
Coroner Merival woke to scan the Times,
And read the story of the suicide
Of Gregory Wenner, circle big enough
From Elenor Murray’s death, but unobserved
Of Merival, until he heard the hint
Of Dr. Trace, who made the autopsy,
That Gregory Wenner might have caused the death
Of Eleanor Murray, or at least was near
When Elenor Murray died. Here is the story
Worked out by Merival as he went about
Unearthing secrets, asking here and there
What Gregory Wenner was to Elenor Murray.
The coroner had a friend who was the friend
Of Mrs. Wenner. Acting on the hint
Of Dr. Trace he found this friend and learned
What follows here of Gregory Wenner, then
What Mrs. Wenner learned in coming home
To bury Gregory Wenner. What he learned
The coroner told the jury. Here’s the life
Of Gregory Wenner first:

GREGORY WENNER

Gregory Wenner’s brother married the mother
Of Alma Bell, the daughter of a marriage
The mother made before. Kinship enough
To justify a call on Wenner’s power
When Alma Bell was face to face with shame.
And Gregory Wenner went to help the girl,
And for a moment looked on Elenor Murray
Who left the school-room passing through the hall,
A girl of seventeen. He left his business
Of massing millions in the city, to help
Poor Alma Bell, and three years afterward
In the Garden of the Gods he saw again
The face of Elenor Murray—what a fate
For Gregory Wenner!

But when Alma Bell
Wrote him for help his mind was roiled with cares:
A money magnate had signed up a loan
For half a million, to which Wenner added
That much beside, earned since his thirtieth year,
Now forty-two, with which to build a block
Of sixteen stories on a piece of ground
Leased in the loop for nine and ninety years.
But now a crabbed miser, much away,
Following the sun, and reached through agents, lawyers,
Owning the land next to the Wenner land,
Refused to have the sixteen story wall
Adjoin his wall, without he might select
His son-in-law as architect to plan
The sixteen-story block of Gregory Wenner.
And Gregory Wenner caught in such a trap,
The loan already bargained for and bound
In a hard money lender’s giant grasp,
Consented to the terms, let son-in-law
Make plans and supervise the work.

Five years
Go by before the evil blossoms fully;
But here’s the bud: Gregory Wenner spent
His half-a-million on the building, also
Four hundred thousand of the promised loan,
Made by the money magnate—then behold
The money magnate said: “You cannot have
Another dollar, for the bonds you give
Are scarcely worth the sum delivered now
Pursuant to the contract. I have learned
Your architect has blundered, in five years
Your building will be leaning, soon enough
It will be wrecked by order of the city.”
And Gregory Wenner found he spoke the truth.
But went ahead to finish up the building,
And raked and scraped, fell back on friends for loans,
Mortgaged his home for money, just to finish
This sixteen-story building, kept a hope
The future would reclaim him.

Gregory Wenner
Who seemed so powerful in his place in life
Had all along this cancer in his life:
He owned the building, but he owed the money,
And all the time the building took a slant,
By just a little every year. And time
Made matters worse for him, increased his foes
As he stood for the city in its warfares
Against the surface railways, telephones;
And earned thereby the wrath of money lenders,
Who made it hard for him to raise a loan,
Who needed loans habitually. Besides
He had the trouble of an invalid wife
Who went from hospitals to sanitariums,
And traveled south, and went in search of health.

Now Gregory Wenner reaches forty-five,
He’s fought a mighty battle, but grows tired.
The building leans a little more each year.
And money, as before, is hard to get.
And yet he lives and keeps a hope.

At last
He does not feel so well, has dizzy spells.
The doctor recommends a change of scene.
And Gregory Wenner starts to see the west.
He visits Denver. Then upon a day
He walks about the Garden of the Gods,
And sees a girl who stands alone and looks
About the Garden’s wonders. Then he sees
The girl is Elenor Murray, who has grown
To twenty-years, who looks that seventeen
When first he saw her. He remembers her,
And speaks of Alma Bell, that Alma Bell
Is kindred to him. Where is Alma Bell,
He has not heard about her in these years?
And Elenor Murray colors, and says: “Look,
There is a white cloud on the mountain top.”
And thus the talk commences.

Elenor Murray
Shows forth the vital spirit that is hers.
She dances on her toes and crows in wonder,
Flings up her arms in rapture. What a world
Of beauty and of hope! For not her life
Of teaching school, a school of Czechs and Poles
There near LeRoy, since she left school and taught,
These two years now, nor arid life at home,
Her father sullen and her mother saddened;
Nor yet that talk of Alma Bell and her
That like a corpse’s gas has scented her,
And made her struggles harder in LeRoy—
Not these have quenched her flame, or made it burn
Less brightly. Though at last she left LeRoy
To fly old things, the dreary home, begin
A new life teaching in Los Angeles.
Gregory Wenner studies her and thinks
That Alma Bell was right to reprimand
Elenor Murray for her reckless ways
Of strolling and of riding. And perhaps
Real things were back of ways to be construed
In innocence or wisdom—for who knows?
His thought ran. Such a pretty face, blue eyes,
And such a buoyant spirit.

So they wandered
About the Garden of the Gods, and took
A meal together at the restaurant.
And as they talked, he told her of himself,
About his wife long ill, this trip for health—
She sensed a music sadness in his soul.
And Gregory Wenner heard her tell her life
Of teaching, of the arid home, the shadow
That fell on her at ten years, when she saw
The hopeless, loveless life of father, mother.
And his great hunger, and his solitude
Reached for the soothing hand of Elenor Murray,
And Elenor Murray having life to give
By her maternal strength and instinct gave.
The man began to laugh, forgot his health,
The leaning building, and the money lenders,
And found his void of spirit growing things—
He loved this girl. And Elenor Murray seeing
This strong man with his love, and seeing too
How she could help him, with that venturesome
And prodigal emotion which was hers
Flung all herself to help him, being a soul
Who tried all things in courage, staked her heart
On good to come.

They took the train together.
They stopped at Santa Cruz, and on the rocks
Heard the Pacific dash himself and watched
The moon upon the water, breathed the scent
Of oriental flowerings. There at last
Under the spell of nature Gregory Wenner
Bowed down his head upon his breast and shook
For those long years of striving and of haggling,
And for this girl, but mostly for a love
That filled him now. And when he spoke again
Of his starved life, his homeless years, the girl,
Her mind resolved through thinking she could serve
This man and bring him happiness, but with heart
Flaming to heaven with the miracle
Of love for him, down looking at her hands
Which fingered nervously her dress’s hem,
Said with that gasp which made her voice so sweet:
“Do what you will with me, to ease your heart
And help your life.”

And Gregory Wenner shaken,
Astonished and made mad with ecstasy
Pressed her brown head against his breast and wept.
And there at Santa Cruz they lived a week,
Till Elenor Murray went to take her school,
He to the north en route for home.

Five years
Had passed since then. And on this day poor Wenner
Looks from a little office at his building
Visibly leaning now, the building lost,
The bonds foreclosed; this is the very day
A court gives a receiver charge of it.
And he, these several months reduced to deals
In casual properties, in trivial trades,
Hard pressed for money, has gone up and down
Pursuing prospects, possibilities,
Scanning each day financial sheets and looking
For clues to lead to money. And he finds
His strength and hope not what they were before.
His wife is living on, no whit restored.
And Gregory Wenner thinks, would they not say
I killed myself because I lost my building,
If I should kill myself, and leave a note
That business worries drove me to the deed,
My building this day taken, a receiver
In charge of what I builded out of my dream.
And yet he said to self, that would be false:
It’s Elenor Murray’s death that makes this life
So hard to bear, and thoughts of Elenor Murray
Make life a torture. First that I had to live
Without her as my wife, and next the fact
That I have taken all her life’s thought, ruined
Her chance for home and marriage; that I have seen
Elenor Murray struggle in the world,
And go forth to the war with just the thought
To serve, if it should kill her.

Then his mind
Ran over these five years when Elenor Murray
Throughout gave such devotion, constant thought,
Filled all his mind and heart, and kept her voice
Singing or talking in his memory’s ear,
In absence with long letters, when together
With passionate utterances of love. The girl
Loved Gregory Wenner, but the girl had found
A comfort for her spiritual solitude,
And got a strength in taking Wenner’s strength.
For at the last one soul lives on another.
And Elenor Murray could not live except
She had a soul to live for, and a soul
On which to pour her passion, taking back
The passion of that soul in recompense.
Gregory Wenner served her power and genius
For giving and for taking so to live,
Achieve and flame; and found them in some moods
Somehow demoniac when his spirits sank,
And drink was all that kept him on his feet.
And so when Elenor Murray came to him
And said this life of teaching was too much,
Could not be longer borne, he thought the time
Had come to end the hopeless love. He raised
The money by the hardest means to pay
Elenor Murray’s training as a nurse,
By this to set her free from teaching school,
And then he set about to crush the girl
Out of his life.

For Gregory Wenner saw
Between this passion and his failing thought,
And gray hairs coming, fortune slip like sand.
And saw his mind diffuse itself in worries,
In longing for her: found himself at times
Too much in need of drink, and shrank to see
What wishes rose that death might take his wife,
And let him marry Elenor Murray, cure
His life with having her beside him, dreaming
That somehow Elenor Murray could restore
His will and vision, by her passion’s touch,
And mother instinct make him whole again.
But if he could not have her for his wife,
And since the girl absorbed him in this life
Of separation which made longing greater,
Just as it lacked the medium to discharge
The great emotion it created, Wenner
Caught up his shreds of strength to crush her out
Of his life, told her so, when he had raised
The money for her training. For he saw
How ruin may overtake a man, and ruin
Pass by the woman, whom the world would judge
As ruined long ago. But look, he thought,
I pity her, not for our sin, if it be,
But that I have absorbed her life; and yet
The girl is mastering life, while I fall down.
She has absorbed me, if the wrong lies here.
And thus his thought went round.

And Elenor Murray
Accepted what he said and went her way
With words like these: “My love and prayers are yours
While life is with us.” Then she turned to study,
And toiled each day till night brought such fatigue
That sleep fell on her. Was it to forget?
And meanwhile she embraced the faith and poured
Her passion driven by a rapturous will
Into religion, trod her path in silence,
Save for a card at Christmas time for him,
Sometimes a little message from some place
Whereto her duty called her.

Gregory Wenner
Stands at the window of his desolate office,
And looks out on his sixteen-story building
Irrevocably lost this day. His mind runs back
To that day in the Garden of the Gods,
That night at Santa Cruz, and then his eyes
Made piercing sharp by sorrow cleave the clay
That lies upon the face of Elenor Murray,
And see the flesh of her the worms have now.
How strange, he thinks, to flit into this life
Singing and radiant, to suffer, toil,
To serve in the war, return to girlhood’s scenes,
To die, to be a memory for a day,
Then be forgotten. O, this life of ours.
Why is not God ashamed for graveyards, why
So thoughtless of our passion he lets play
This tragedy.

And Gregory Wenner thought
About the day he stood here, even as now
And heard a step, a voice, and looked around
Saw Elenor Murray, felt her arms again,
Her kiss upon his cheek, and saw her face
As light was beating on it, heard her gasp
In ecstasy for going to the war,
To which that day she gave her pledge. And heard
Her words of consecration. Heard her say,
As though she were that passionate Heloise
Brought into life again: “All I have done
Was done for love of you, all I have asked
Was only you, not what belonged to you.
I did not hope for marriage or for gifts.
I have not gratified my will, desires,
But yours I sought to gratify. I have longed
To be yours wholly, I have kept for self
Nothing, have lived for you, have lived for you
These years when you thought best to crush me out.
And now though there’s a secret in my heart,
Not wholly known to me, still I can know it
By seeing you again, I think, by touching
Your hand again. Your life has tortured me,
Both for itself, and since I could not give
Out of my heart enough to make your life
A way of peace, a way of happiness.”

Then Gregory Wenner thought how she looked down
And said: “Since I go to the war, would God
Look with disfavor on us if you took me
In your arms wholly once again? My friend,
Not with the thought to leave me soon, but sleeping
Like mates, as birds do, making sleep so sweet
Close to each other as God means we should.
I mingle love of God with love of you,
And in the night-time I can pray for you
With you beside me, find God closer then.
Who knows, you may take strength from such an hour.”
Then Gregory Wenner lived that night again,
And the next morning when she rose and shook,
As it were night gathered dew upon fresh wings,
The vital water from her glowing flesh.
And shook her hair out, laughed and said to him:
“Courage and peace, my friend.” And how they passed
Among the multitude, when he took her hand
And said farewell, and hastened to this room
To seek for chances in another day,
And never saw her more.

And all these thoughts
Coming on Gregory Wenner swept his soul
Till it seemed like a skiff in mid-sea under
A sky unreckoning, where neither bread,
Nor water, save salt water, were for lips.
And over him descended a blank light
Of life’s futility, since now this hour
Life dropped the mask and showed him just a skull.
And a strange fluttering of the nerves came on him,
So that he clutched the window frame, lest he
Spring from the window to the street below.
And he was seized with fear that said to fly,
Go somewhere, find some one, so to draw out
This madness which was one with him and in him,
And which some one in pity must relieve,
Something must cure. And in this sudden horror
Of self, this ebbing of the tides of life,
Leaving his shores to visions, where he saw
Horrible creatures stir amid the slime,
Gregory Wenner hurried from the room
And walked the streets to find his thought again
Wherewith to judge if he should kill himself
Or look to find a path in life once more.

And Gregory Wenner sitting in his club
Wrote to his brother thus: “I cannot live
Now that my business is so tangled up,
Bury my body by my father’s side.”
Next day the papers headlined Gregory Wenner:
“Loss of a building drives to suicide.”
————
Elenor Murray’s death kills Gregory Wenner
And Gregory Wenner dying make a riffle
In Mrs. Wenner’s life—reveals to her
A secret long concealed:—

MRS. GREGORY WENNER

Gregory Wenner’s wife was by the sea
When Gregory Wenner killed himself, half sick
And half malingering, and otiose.
She wept, sent for a doctor to be braced,
Induced a friend to travel with her west
To bury Gregory Wenner; did not know
That Gregory Wenner was in money straits
Until she read the paper, or had lost
His building in the loop. The man had kept
His worries from her ailing ears, was glad
To keep her traveling, or taking cures.

She came and buried Gregory Wenner; found
His fortune just a shell, the building lost,
A little money in the bank, a store
Far out on Lake Street, forty worthless acres
In northern Indiana, twenty lots
In some Montana village. Here she was,
A widow, penniless, an invalid.
The crude reality of things awoke
A strength she did not dream was hers. And then
She went to Gregory Wenner’s barren office
To collect the things he had, get in his safe
For papers and effects.

She had to pay
An expert to reveal the combination,
And throw the bolts. And there she sat a day,
And emptied pigeon holes and searched and read.
And in one pigeon hole she found a box,
And in the box a lock of hair wrapped up
In tissue paper, fragrant powder lying
Around the paper—in the box a card
With woman’s writing on it, just the words
“For my beloved”; but no name or date.

Who was this woman mused the widow there?
She did not know the name. She did not know
Her eyes had seen this Elenor Murray once
When Elenor Murray came with Gregory Wenner
To dinner at his home to face the wife.
For Elenor Murray in a mood of strength,
After her confirmation and communion,
Had said to Gregory Wenner: “Now the end
Has come to this, our love, I think it best
If she should ever learn I am the woman
Who in New York spent summer days with you,
And later in Chicago, in that summer,
She will remember what my eyes will show
When we stand face to face, and I give proof
That I am changed, repentant.”

For the wife
Had listened to a friend who came to tell
She saw this Gregory Wenner in New York
From day to day in gardens and cafes,
And by the sea romancing with a girl.
And later Mrs. Wenner found a book,
Which Gregory Wenner cherished—with the words
Beloved, and the date. And now she knew
The hand that wrote the card here in this box,
The hand that wrote the inscription in the book
Were one—but still she did not know the woman.
No doubt the woman of that summer’s flame,
Whom Gregory Wenner promised not to see
When she brought out the book and told him all
She learned of his philandering in New York.
And Elenor Murray’s body was decaying
In darkness, under earth there at LeRoy
While Mrs. Wenner read, and did not know
The hand that wrote the card lay blue and green,
Half hidden in the foldings of the shroud,
And all that country stirred for Elenor Murray,
Of which the widow absent in the east
Had never heard.

And Mrs. Wenner found
Beside the box and lock of hair three letters,
And sat and read them. Through her eyes and brain
This meaning and this sound of blood and soul,
Like an old record with a diamond needle.
Passed music like:—

“The days go swiftly by
With study and with work. I am too tired
At night to think. I read anatomy,
Materia medica and other things,
And do the work an undergraduate
Is called upon to do. And every week
I spend three afternoons with the nuns and sew,
And care for children of the poor whose mothers
Are earning bread away. I go to church
And talk with Mother Janet. And I pray
At morning and at night for you, and ask
For strength to live without you and for light
To understand why love of you is mine,
And why you are not mine, and whether God
Will give you to me some day if I prove
My womanhood is worthy of you, dear.
And sometimes when our days of bliss come back
And flood me with their warmth and blinding light
I take my little crucifix and kiss it,
And plunge in work to take me out of self,
Some service to another. So it is,
This sewing and this caring for the children
Stills memory and gives me strength to live,
And pass the days, go on. I shall not draw
Upon your thought with letters, still I ask
Your thought of me sometimes. Would it be much
If once a year you sent me a bouquet
To prove to me that you remember, sweet,
Still cherish me a little, give me faith
That in this riddle world there is a hand,
Which spite of separation, thinks and touches
Blossoms that I touch afterward? Dear heart,
I have starved out and killed that reckless mood
Which would have taken you and run away.
Oh, if you knew that this means killing, too,
The child I want—our child. You have a cross
No less than I, beloved, even if love
Of me has passed and eased the agony
I thought you knew—your cross is heavy, dear,
Bound, but not wedded to her, never to know
The life of marriage with her. Yet be brave,
Be noble, dear, be always what God made you,
A great heart, patient, gentle, sacrificing,
Bring comfort to her tedious days, forbear
When she is petulant, for if you do,
I know God will reward you, give you peace.
I pray for strength for you, that never again
May you distress her as you did, I did
When she found there was someone. Lest she know
Destroy this letter, all I ever write,
So that her mind may never fix itself
Upon a definite person, on myself.
But still remaining vague may better pass
To lighter shadows, nothingness at last.
I try to think I sinned, have so confessed
To get forgiveness at my first communion.
And yet a vestige of a thought in me
Will not submit, confess the sin. Well, dear,
You can awake at midnight, at the pause
Of duty in the day, merry or sad,
Light hearted or discouraged, if you chance,
To think of me, remember I send prayers
To God for you each day—oh may His light
Shine on your face!”

So Widow Wenner read,
And wondered of the writer, since no name
Was signed; and wept a little, dried her eyes
And flushed with anger, said, “adulteress,
Adulteress who played the game of pity,
And wove about my husband’s heart the spell
Of masculine sympathy for a sorrowing woman,
A trick as old as Eden. And who knows
But all the money went here in the end?
For if a woman plunges from her aim
To piety, devotion such as this,
She will plunge back to sin, unstable heart,
That swings from self-denial to indulgence
And spends itself in both.”

Then Widow Wenner
Took up the second letter:

“I have signed
To go to France to-day. I wrote you once
I planned to take the veil, become a nun.
But now the war has changed my thought. I see
In service for my country fuller life,
More useful sacrifice and greater work
Than ever I could have, being a nun.
The cause is so momentous. Think, my dear,
This woman who still thinks of you will be
A factor in this war for liberty,
A soldier serving soldiers, giving strength,
Health, hope and spirit to the soldier boys
Who fall, must be restored to fight again.
I’ve thrown my soul in this, am all aflame.
You should have seen me when I took the oath,
And raised my hand and pledged my word to serve,
Support the law. I want to think of you
As proud of me for doing this—be proud,
Be grateful, too, that I have strength and will
To give myself to this. And if it chance,
As almost I am hoping, that the work
Should break me, sweep me under, think of me
As one who died for country, as I shall
As truly as the soldiers slain in battle.
I leave to-morrow, will be at a camp
Some weeks before I sail. I telephoned you
This morning twice, they said you would return
By two-o’clock at least. I write instead.
But I shall come to see you, if I can
Sometime this afternoon, and if I don’t,
This letter then must answer. Peace be with you.
To-day I’m very happy. Write to me,
Or if you do not think it best, all right,
I’ll understand. Before I sail I’ll send
A message to you—for the time farewell.”

Then Widow Wenner read the telegram
The third and last communication: “Sail
To-day, to-morrow, very soon, I know.
My memories of you are happy ones.
A fond adieu.” This telegram was signed
By Elenor Murray. Widow Wenner knew
The name at last, sat petrified to think
This was the girl who brazened through the dinner
Some years ago when Gregory Wenner brought
This woman to his home—“the shameless trull,”
Said Mrs. Wenner, “harlot, impudent jade,
To think my husband is dead, would she were dead—
I could be happy if I knew a bomb
Or vile disease had got her.” Then she looked
In other pigeon holes, and found in one
A photograph of Elenor Murray, knew
The face that looked across the dinner table.
And in the pigeon hole she found some verses
Clipped from a magazine, and tucked away
The letters, verses, telegram in her bag,
Closed up the safe and left.

Next day at breakfast
She scanned the morning Times, her eyes were wide
For reading of the Elenor Murray inquest.
“Well, God is just,” she murmured, “God is just.”
————
All this was learned of Gregory Wenner. Even
If Gregory Wenner killed the girl, the man
Was dead now. Could he kill her and return
And kill himself? The coroner had gone,
The jury too, to view the spot where lay
Elenor Murray’s body. It was clear
A man had walked here. Was it Gregory Wenner?
The hunter who came up and found the body?
This hunter was a harmless, honest soul
Could not have killed her, passed the grill of questions
From David Borrow, skilled examiner,
The coroner, the jurors. But meantime
If Gregory Wenner killed this Elenor Murray
How did he do it? Dr. Trace has made
His autopsy and comes and makes report
To the coroner and the jury in these words:—

DR. TRACE TO THE CORONER

I cannot tell you, Coroner, the cause
Of death of Elenor Murray, not until
My chemical analysis is finished.
Here is the woman’s heart sealed in this jar,
I weighed it, weight nine ounces, if she had
A hemolysis, cannot tell you now
What caused the hemolysis. Since you say
She took no castor oil, that you can learn
From Irma Leese, or any witness, still
A chemical analysis may show
The presence of ricin,—and that she took
A dose of oil not pure. Her throat betrayed
Slight inflammation; but in brief, I wait
My chemical analysis.

Let’s exclude
The things we know and narrow down the facts.
She lay there by the river, death had come
Some twenty hours before. No stick or stone,
No weapon near her, bottle, poison box,
No bruise upon her, in her mouth no dust,
No foreign bodies in her nostrils, neck
Without a mark, no punctures, cuts or scars
Upon her anywhere, no water in lungs,
No mud, sand, straws or weeds in hands, the nails
Clean, as if freshly manicured.

Again
No evidence of rape. I first examined
The genitals in situ, found them sound.
The girl had lived, was not a virgin, still
Had temperately indulged, and not at all
In recent months, no evidence at all
Of conjugation willingly or not,
The day of death. But still I lifted out
The ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus,
The vagina and vulvae. Opened up
The mammals, found no milk. No pregnancy
Existed, sealed these organs up to test
For poison later, as we doctors know
Sometimes a poison’s introduced per vaginam.

I sealed the brain up too, shall make a test
Of blood and serum for urea; death
Comes suddenly from that, you find no lesion,
Must take a piece of brain and cut it up,
Pour boiling water on it, break the brain
To finer pieces, pour the water off,
Digest the piece of brain in other water,
Repeat four times, the solutions mix together,
Dry in an oven, treat with ether, at last
The residue put on a slide of glass
With nitric acid, let it stand awhile,
Then take your microscope—if there’s urea
You’ll see the crystals—very beautiful!
A cobra’s beautiful, but scarce can kill
As quick as these.

Likewise I have sealed up
The stomach, liver, kidneys, spleen, intestines,
So many poisons have no microscopic
Appearance that convinces, opium,
Hyoscyamus, belladonna fool us;
But as the stomach had no inflammation,
It was not chloral, ether took her off,
Which we can smell, to boot. But I can find
Strychnia, if it killed her; though you know
That case in England sixty years ago,
Where the analysis did not disclose
Strychnia, though they hung a man for giving
That poison to a fellow.

To recur
I’m down to this: Perhaps a hemolysis—
But what produced it? If I find no ricin
I turn to streptococcus, deadly snake,
Or shall I call him tiger? For I think
The microscopic world of living things
Is just a little jungle, filled with tigers,
Snakes, lions, what you will, with teeth and claws,
The perfect miniatures of these monstrous foes.
Sweet words come from the lips and tender hands
Like Elenor Murray’s, minister, nor know
The jungle has been roused in throat or lungs;
And shapes venene begin to crawl and eat
The ruddy apples of the blood, eject
Their triple venomous excreta in
The channels of the body.

There’s the heart,
Which may be weakened by a streptococcus.
But if she had a syncope and fell
She must have bruised her body or her head.
And if she had a syncope, was held up,
Who held her up? That might have cost her life:
To be held up in syncope. You know
You lay a person down in syncope,
And oftentimes the heart resumes its beat.
Perhaps she was held up until she died,
Then laid there by the river, so no bruise.
So many theories come to me. But again,
I say to you, look for a man. Run down
All clues of Gregory Wenner. He is dead—
Loss of a building drives to suicide—
The papers say, but still it may be true
He was with Elenor Murray when she died,
Pushed her, we’ll say, or struck her in a way
To leave no mark, a tap upon the heart
That shocked the muscles more or less obscure
That bind the auricles and ventricles,
And killed her. Then he flies away in fear,
Aghast at what he does, and kills himself.
Look for a man, I say. It must be true,
She went so secretly to walk that morning
To meet a man—why would she walk alone?

So while you hunt the man, I’ll look for ricin,
And with my chemicals end up the search.
I never saw a heart more beautiful,
Just look at it. We doctors all agreed
This Elenor Murray might have lived to ninety
Except for jungles, poison, sudden shock.
I take my bottle with the heart of Elenor
And go about my way. It beat in France,
It beat for France and for America,
But what is truer, somewhere was a man
For whom it beat!
————
When Irma Leese, the Aunt of Elenor Murray,
Appeared before the coroner she told
Of Elenor Murray’s visit, of the morning
She left to walk, was never seen again.
And brought the coroner some letters sent
By Elenor from France. What follows now
Is what the coroner, or the jury heard
From Irma Leese, from letters drawn—beside
The riffle that the death of Elenor Murray
Sent round the life of Irma Leese, which spread
To Tokio and touched a man, the son
Of Irma Leese’s sister, dead Corinne,
The mother of this man in Tokio.

IRMA LEESE

Elenor Murray landing in New York,
After a weary voyage, none too well,
Staid in the city for a week and then
Upon a telegram from Irma Leese,
Born Irma Fouche, her aunt who lived alone
This summer in the Fouche house near LeRoy,
Came west to visit Irma Leese and rest.

For Elenor Murray had not been herself
Since that hard spring when in the hospital,
Caring for soldiers stricken with the flu,
She took bronchitis, after weeks in bed
Rose weak and shaky, crept to health again
Through egg-nogs, easy strolls about Bordeaux.
And later went to Nice upon a furlough
To get her strength again.

But while she saw
Her vital flame burn brightly, as of old
On favored days, yet for the rest the flame
Sputtered or sank a little. So she thought
How good it might be to go west and stroll
About the lovely country of LeRoy,
And hear the whispering cedars by a window
In the Fouche mansion where this Irma Leese,
Her aunt, was summering. So she telegraphed,
And being welcomed, went.

This stately house,
Built sixty years before by Arthur Fouche,
A brick home with a mansard roof, an oriel
That looked between the cedars, and a porch
With great Ionic columns, from the street
Stood distantly amid ten acres of lawn,
Trees, flower plots—belonged to Irma Leese,
Who had reclaimed it from a chiropractor,
To cleanse the name of Fouche from that indignity,
And bring it in the family again,
Since she had spent her girlhood, womanhood
To twenty years amid its twenty rooms.
For Irma Leese at twenty years had married
And found herself at twenty-five a widow,
With money left her, then had tried again,
And after years dissolved the second pact,
And made a settlement, was rich in fact,
Now forty-two. Five years before had come
And found the house she loved a sanitarium,
A chiropractor’s home. And as she stood
Beside the fence and saw the oriel,
Remembered all her happiness on this lawn
With brothers and with sisters, one of whom
Was Elenor Murray’s mother, then she willed
To buy the place and spend some summers here.
And here she was the summer Elenor Murray
Returned from France.

And Irma Leese had said:
“Here is your room, it has the oriel,
And there’s the river and the hills for you.
Have breakfast in your room what hour you will,
Rise when you will. We’ll drive and walk and rest,
Run to Chicago when we have a mind.
I have a splendid chauffeur now and maids.
You must grow strong and well.”

And Elenor Murray
Gasped out her happiness for the pretty room,
And stood and viewed the river and the hills,
And wept a little on the gentle shoulder
Of Irma Leese.

And so the days had passed
Of walking, driving, resting, many talks;
For Elenor Murray spoke to Irma Leese
Of tragic and of rapturous days in France,
And Irma Leese, though she had lived full years,
Had scarcely lived as much as Elenor Murray,
And could not hear enough from Elenor Murray
Of the war and France, but mostly she would urge
Her niece to tell of what affairs of love
Had come to her. And Elenor Murray told
Of Gregory Wenner, save she did not tell
The final secret, with a gesture touched
The story off by saying: It was hopeless,
I went into religion to forget.
But on a day she said to Irma Leese:
“I almost met my fate at Nice,” then sketched
A hurried picture of a brief romance.
But Elenor Murray told her nothing else
Of loves or men. But all the while the aunt
Weighed Elenor Murray, on a day exclaimed:
“I see myself in you, and you are like
Your Aunt Corinne who died in ninety-two.
I’ll tell you all about your Aunt Corinne
Some day when we are talking, but I see
You have the Fouche blood—we are lovers all.
Your mother is a lover, Elenor,
If you would know it.”

“O, your Aunt Corinne
She was most beautiful, but unfortunate.
Her husband was past sixty when she married,
And she was thirty-two. He was distinguished,
Had money and all that, but youth is all,
Is everything for love, and she was young,
And he was old.”

A week or two had passed
Since Elenor Murray came to Irma Leese,
When on a morning fire broke from the eaves
And menaced all the house; but maids and gardeners
With buckets saved the house, while Elenor Murray
And Irma Leese dipped water from the barrels
That stood along the ell.

A week from that
A carpenter was working at the eaves
Along the ell, and in the garret knelt
To pry up boards and patch. When as he pried
A board up, he beheld between the rafters
A package of old letters stained and frayed,
Tied with a little ribbon almost dust.
And when he went down-stairs, delivered it
To Irma Leese and said: Here are some letters
I found up in the garret under the floor,
I pried up in my work.

Then Irma Leese
Looked at the letters, saw her sister’s hand,
Corinne’s upon the letters, opened, read,
And saw the story which she knew before
Brought back in this uncanny way, the hand
Which wrote the letters six and twenty years
Turned back to dust. And when her niece came in
She showed the letters, said, “I’ll let you read,
I’ll tell you all about them”:

“When Corinne
Was nineteen, very beautiful and vital,
Red-cheeked, a dancer, bubbling like new wine,
A catch, as you may know, you see this house
Was full of laughter then, so many children.
We had our parties, too, and young men thought,
Each one of us would have a dowry splendid—
A young man from Chicago came along,
A lawyer there, but lately come from Pittsburgh
To practice, win his way. I knew this man.
He was a handsome dog with curly hair,
Blue eyes and sturdy figure. Well, Corinne
Quite lost her heart. He came here to a dance,
And so the game commenced. And father thought
The fellow was not right, but all of us,
Your mother and myself said, yes he is,
And we conspired to help Corinne and smooth
The path of confidence. But later on
Corinne was not so buoyant, would not talk
With me, your mother freely. Then at last
Her eyes were sometimes red; we knew she wept.
And, then Corinne was sent away. Well, here
You’ll guess the rest. Her health was breaking down,
That’s true enough; the world could think its thoughts,
And say his love grew cold, or she found out
The black-leg that he was, and he was that.
But Elenor, the truth was more than that,
Corinne had been betrayed, she went away
To right herself—these letters prove the case,
Which all the gossips, busy as they were,
Could not make out. The paper at LeRoy
Had printed that she went to pay a visit
To relatives in the east. Three months or so
She came back well and rosy. But meanwhile
Your grandfather had paid this shabby scoundrel
A sum of money, I forget the sum,
To get these letters of your Aunt Corinne—
These letters here. This matter leaked, of course.
And then we let the story take this form
And moulded it a little to this form:
The fellow was a scoundrel—this was proved
When he took money to return her letters.
They were love letters, they had been engaged,
She thought him worthy, found herself deceived
Proved, too, by taking money, when at first
He looked with honorable eyes to young Corinne,
And won her trust. And so Corinne lived here
Ten years or more, at thirty married the judge,
Her senior thirty years, and went away.
She bore a child and died—look Elenor
Here are the letters which she took and nailed
Beneath the garret floor. We’ll read them through,
And then I’ll burn them.”

Irma Leese rose up
And put the letters in her desk and said:
“Let’s ride along the river.” So they rode,
But as they rode, the day being clear and mild
The fancy took them to Chicago, where
They lunched and spent the afternoon, returning
At ten o’clock that night.

And the next morning
When Irma Leese expected Elenor
To rise and join her, asked for her, a maid
Told Irma Leese that Elenor had gone
To walk somewhere. And all that day she waited.
But as night came, she fancied Elenor
Had gone to see her mother, once rose up
To telephone, then stopped because she felt
Elenor might have plans she would not wish
Her mother to get wind of—let it go.
But when night came, she wondered, fell asleep
With wondering and worry.

But next morning
As she was waiting for the car to come
To motor to LeRoy, and see her sister,
Elenor’s mother, in a casual way,
Learn if her niece was there, and waiting read
The letters of Corinne, the telephone
Rang in an ominous way, and Irma Leese
Sprang up to answer, got the tragic word
Of Elenor Murray found beside the river.
Left all the letters spilled upon her desk
And motored to the river, to LeRoy
Where Coroner Merival took the body.

Just
As Irma Leese departed, in the room
A sullen maid revengeful for the fact
She was discharged, was leaving in a day,
Entered and saw the letters, read a little,
And gathered them, went to her room and packed
Her telescope and left, went to LeRoy,
And gave a letter to this one and that,
Until the servant maids and carpenters
And some lubricous fellows at LeRoy
Who made companions of these serving maids,
Had each a letter of the dead Corinne,
Which showed at last, after some twenty years,
Of silence and oblivion, to LeRoy
With memory to refresh, that poor Corinne
Had given her love, herself, had been betrayed,
Abandoned by a scoundrel.

Merival,
The Coroner, when told about the letters,
For soon the tongues were wagging in LeRoy,
Went here and there to find them, till he learned
What quality of love the dead Corinne
Had given to this man. Then shook his head,
Resolved to see if he could not unearth
In Elenor Murray’s life some faithless lover
Who sought her death.

The letters’ riffle crawled
Through shadows of the waters of LeRoy
Until it looked a snake, was seen as such
In Tokio by Franklin Hollister,
The son of dead Corinne; it seemed a snake:
He heard the coroner through neglect or malice
Had let the letters scatter—not the truth;—
The coroner had gathered up the letters,
Befriending Irma Leese; she got them back
Through Merival. The riffle’s just the same.
And hence this man in Tokio is crazed
For shame and fear—for fear the girl he loves
Will hear his mother’s story and break off
Her marriage promise.

So in reckless rage
He posts a letter off to Lawyer Hood,
Chicago, Illinois—the coroner
Gets all the story through this Lawyer Hood,
Long after Elenor’s inquest is at end.
Meantime he cools, is wiser, thinks it bad
To stir the scandal with a suit at law.
And then when cooled he hears from Lawyer Hood
Who tells him what the truth is. So it ends.
————
These letters and the greenish wave that coiled
At Tokio is beyond the coroner’s eye
Fixed on the water where the pebble fell:—
This death of Elenor, circles close at hand
Engage his interest. Now he seeks to learn
About her training and religious life.
And hears of Miriam Fay, a friend he thinks,
And confidant of her religious life,
Head woman of the school where Elenor
Learned chemistry, materia medica,
Anatomy, to fit her for the work
Of nursing. And he writes this Miriam Fay
And Miriam Fay responds. The letter comes
Before the jury. Here is what she wrote:—

MIRIAM FAY’S LETTER

Elenor Murray asked to go in training
And came to see me, but the school was full,
We could not take her. Then she asked to stand
Upon a list and wait, I put her off.
She came back, and she came back, till at last
I took her application; then she came
And pushed herself and asked when she could come,
And start to train. At last I laughed and said:
“Well, come to-morrow.” I had never seen
Such eagerness, persistence. So she came.
She tried to make a friend of me, perhaps
Since it was best, I being in command.
But anyway she wooed me, tried to please me.
And spite of everything I grew to love her,
Though I distrusted her. But yet again
I had belief in her best self, though doubting
The girl somehow. But when I learned the girl
Had never had religious discipline,
Her father without faith, her mother too,
Her want of moral sense, I understood.
She lacked stability of spirit, to-day
She would be one thing, something else the next.
Shot up in fire, which failed and died away
And I began to see her fraternize
With girls who had her traits, too full of life
To be what they should be, unstable too,
Much like herself.

Not long before she came
Into the training school, six months, perhaps,
She had some tragedy, I don’t know what,
Had been quite ill in body and in mind.
When she went into training I could see
Her purpose to wear down herself, forget
In weariness of body, something lived.
She was alert and dutiful and sunny,
Kept all the rules, was studious, led the class,
Excelled, I think, in studies of the nerves,
The mind grown sick.

As we grew better friends,
More intimate, she talked about religion,
And sacred subjects, asked about the church.
I gave her books to read, encouraged her,
Asked her to make her peace with God, and set
Her feet in pious paths. At last she said
She wished to be baptized, confirmed. I made
The plans for her, she was baptized, confirmed,
Went to confessional, and seemed renewed
In spirit by conversion. For at once
Her zeal was like a flame at Pentecost,
She almost took the veil, but missing that,
She followed out the discipline to the letter,
Kept all the feast days, went to mass, communion,
Did works of charity; indeed, I think
She spent her spare hours all in all at sewing
There with the sisters for the poor. She had,
When she came to me, jewelry of value,
A diamond solitaire, some other things.
I missed them, and she said she sold them, gave
The money to a home for friendless children.
And I remember when she said her father
Had wronged, misvalued her; but now her love,
Made more abundant by the love of Christ,
Had brought her to forgiveness. All her mood
Was of humility and sacrifice.

One time I saw her at the convent, sitting
Upon a foot-stool at the gracious feet
Of the Mother Superior, sewing for the poor;
Hair parted in the middle, curls combed out.
Then was it that I missed her jewelry.
She looked just like a poor maid, humble, patient,
Head bent above her sewing, eyes averted.
The room was silent with religious thought.
I loved her then and pitied her. But now
I think she had that in her which at times
Made her a flagellant, at other times
A rioter. She used the church to drag
Her life from something, took it for a bladder
To float her soul when it was perilled. First,
She did not sell her jewelry; this ring,
Too brilliant for forgetting, or to pass
Unnoticed when she wore it, showed again
Upon her finger after she had come
Out of her training, was a graduate.
She had a faculty for getting in
Where elegance and riches were. She went
Among the great ones, when she found a way,
And traveled with them where she learned the life
Of notables, aristocrats. It was there,
Or when from duty free and feasting, gadding
The ring showed on her finger.

In two years
She dropped the church. New friends made in the school,
New interests, work that took her energies
And this religious flare had cured her up
Of what was killing her when first I knew her.
There was another thing that drew her back
To flesh, away from spirit: She saw bodies,
And handled bodies as a nurse, forgot
The body is the spirit’s temple, fell
To some materialism of thought. And now
Avoided me, was much away, of course,
On duty here and there. I tried to hold her,
Protect and guide her, wrote to her at times
To make confession, take communion. She
Ignored these letters. But I heard her say
The body was as natural as the soul,
And just as natural its desires. She kept
Out of the wreck of faith one thing alone,
If she kept that: She could endure to hear
God’s name profaned, but would not stand to hear
The Savior’s spoken in irreverence.
She was afraid, no doubt. Or to be just,
The tender love of Christ, his sacrifice,
Perhaps had won her wholly—let it go,
I’ll say that much for her.

Why am I harsh?
Because I saw the good in her all streaked
With so much evil, evil known and lived
In knowledge of it, clung to none the less,
Unstable as water, how could she succeed?
Untruthful, how could confidence be hers?
I sometimes think she joined the church to mask
A secret life, renewed forgiven sins.
After she cloaked herself with piety.
Perhaps, at least, when she saw what to do,
And how to do it, using these detours
Of piety to throw us off, who else
Had seen what doors she entered, whence she came.
She wronged the church, I think, made it a screen
To stand behind for kisses, to look from
Inviting kisses. Then, as I have said,
She took materialism from her work,
And so renewed her sins. She drank, I think,
And smoked and feasted; but as for the rest,
The smoke obscured the flame, but there is flame
Or fire at least where there is smoke.

You ask
What took her to the war? Why only this:
Adventure, chance of marriage, amorous conquests—
The girl was mad for men, although I saw
Her smoke obscured the flame, I never saw her
Except with robins far too tame or lame
To interest her, and robins prove to me
The hawk is somewhere, waits for night to join
His playmate when the robins are at rest.
You see the girl has madness in her, flies
From exaltation up to ecstasy.
Feeds on emotion, never has enough.
Tries all things, states of spirit, even beliefs.
Passes from lust (I think) to celibacy,
Feasts, fasts, eats, starves, has raptures then inflicts
The whip upon her back, is penitent,
Then proud, is humble, then is arrogant,
Looks down demurely, stares you out of face,
But runs the world around. For in point of fact,
She traveled much, knew cities and their ways;
And when I used to see her at the convent
So meek, clothed like a sewing maid, at once
The pictures that she showed me of herself
At seaside places or on boulevards,
Her beauty clothed in linen or in silk,
Came back to mind, and I would resurrect
The fragments of our talks in which I saw
How she knew foods and drinks and restaurants,
And fashionable shops. This girl could fool the elect—
She fooled me for a time. I found her out.
Did she aspire? Perhaps, if you believe
It’s aspiration to seek out the rich,
And ape them. Not for me. Of course she went
To get adventure in the war, perhaps
She got too much. But as to waste of life,
She might have been a quiet, noble woman
Keeping her place in life, not trying to rise
Out of her class—too useless—in her class
Making herself all worthy, serviceable.
You’ll find ’twas pride that slew her. Very like
She found a rich man, tried to hold him, lost
Her honor and her life in consequence.
————
When Merival showed this letter to the jury,
Marion the juryman spoke up:
“You know that type of woman—saintly hag!
I wouldn’t take her word about a thing
By way of inference, or analysis.
They had some trouble, she and Elenor
You may be sure.” And Merival replied:
“Take it for what it’s worth. I leave you now
To see the man who owns the Daily Times.
He’s turned upon our inquest, did you see
The jab he gives me? I can jab as well.”
So Merival went out and took with him
A riffle in the waters of circumstance
Set up by Elenor Murray’s death to one
Remote, secure in greatness—to the man
Who ran the Times.