Doubly false

The town house which had once been the property of Amos Lander was a small building, old in itself, but to which modern improvements had given an air of elegance more than in keeping with the times. It was in the heart of the city, and surrounded by a small garden overrun with a luxurious variety of roses, so rare and well cultivated that they sometimes outbloomed the summer. The house stood back from the street, directly in this nest of flowers, which climbed up its walls, hung a living drapery around the windows, and made the verandah in front a perfect mass of rich leafiness. Since Mr. Lander’s death these roses had been permitted to run riot in their rich blossoming. Great branches of the running species broke loose and shook themselves free of restraint, dashing showers of leaves and petals about whenever a high wind swept over them. The verandah, which was a delicate network if iron, had a straggling, neglected appearance, and many a flower-loving child peeped with longing eyes through the iron fence at the beds of heliotrope and verbena that were half-choking up the little yard in front.

This semi-desolation prevailed when Cora Lander unlocked the gate and passed through, holding up her black dress from the tangle of scarlet verbenas that had crept over the pathway.

Cora cast a disapproving glance at all this neglect and rang the bell, which required some effort, for the wire was getting rusty. After awhile the door was opened and an Irish woman, evidently just from an ill-kept kitchen, asked abruptly what the lady wanted.

“I am Miss Lander,” said Cora, sweeping past the woman and entering the house with a haughty feeling of proprietorship. “My aunt told me that some one was left in charge here. Are you the person?”

“I suppose so, marm,” answered the woman, distrustfully.

“Where is the key to this room?” inquired Cora, shaking one of the parlor doors, which was too closely fitted for any effort of hers to open it.

“The door is locked—where is the key, I say?”

“In my pocket, marm,” said the woman, thrusting one hand into the pocket of her dress and doggedly holding it there. “How am I to know who you are? Miss Lander was drounded with her father, how can you be her then?”

“I tell you I am Miss Lander, the owner and mistress of this house. Open the door, I say?”

Still the woman hesitated; imperious as the command was, it failed to intimidate her.

“I have seen Miss Lander,” she said, “but it was nigh upon eight years ago. How can I tell, especially as she was drounded with her father, to say nothing of being burned up?”

“If you have seen Miss Lander,” said Cora, who was anxious to take possession without disturbance, “you will remember something about her. Was she at all like this?”

Cora took off her bonnet, pushed the masses of ruddy hair back from her temples and turned her face on the woman.

“I—I—yes—yes, she did look like that as much as green apple can look like a ripe one; but it isn’t a handsome face that I would give up my keys to. But that ring on your finger, I’ve seen that many and many a time on the old gentleman’s hand. He left it with the madam, I know, and if she could give it to you, I can open the door, and will, right or wrong.”

The woman unlocked the door and flung it open with a bang.

“Go in,” she said, following Cora into the darkened room. “Go in, and I’ll open the shutters.”

Directly a flood of light was let into the room, subdued a little by the thick leafiness of the verandah, but quite sufficient to reveal a dusty parlor, well furnished, but with a good deal that was old-fashioned and faded about it.

“That will do,” said Cora, casting a half-scornful glance around her. “Unlock the other rooms, I must see them all.”

The woman obeyed, for, with her bonnet off, Cora had enough of the Lander in her face to satisfy a more careful person of her identity.

“They’ve been shut up a good while, and ain’t in over good order, I’ll own up to that,” she said, as Cora took up her lace parasol from the piano, where she had laid it, and brushed the dust away. “But madam hasn’t been here since the old man died, and it’s of no use fixing up for people if they won’t come. This room is the back parlor, half full of books, for Mr. Lander dearly loved reading. That’s his picter over the fire-place.”

Cora started as a stream of light poured through the window close by her and fell on the portrait of Amos Lander, whose eyes seemed bent mournfully upon her. Something like a pang of remorse seized upon the girl for a moment, and putting one hand to her side, she uttered a faint cry of absolute pain. Those mild eyes seemed to follow her with reproaches which she could not bear.

“Close the shutters,” she cried out, sharply, “you throw in light enough to blind one.”

The woman fumbled awkwardly at the blinds, and secured them at last, slowly gathering a sinister light over the picture, which took a stern, threatening aspect from the change. Cora Lander felt a cold chill creeping over her, and the sensation made her angry.

“Will you never have done?” she said, leaning over the woman and sweeping the dusty slats up with her hand. “I have seen enough to know that everything shall be changed here. Now lead the way up stairs.”

“There is a dining-room, and—”

“I know, I know, but the air is oppressive. Up stairs it may be more cheerful.”

Cora shivered as she thus abruptly broke in upon the woman, and when she went into the hall her very lips were cold and pale. That picture had reached even her heart.

The chambers, like the lower part of the house, were furnished after the fashion of years ago. She remembered each object, and to her own surprise felt a sort of terror at approaching them. They had been so closely associated with the man whose only child she was wronging that each article seemed an embodiment of her crime. After passing through the upper stories in quick haste, she came down again, and pausing in the hall, addressed the woman.

“Have a room made ready; I shall sleep here to-night. Get a cup of tea, and anything else you like, ready for me a little after seven. If there is anything in the house that you fancy, set it aside and have it for your own. But make your selection at once, for to-morrow I shall order all this old-fashioned furniture moved out and new put in. Don’t be modest and open those eyes so. Take what you want and as much as you care for. Have your wages been paid?”

“Yes marm, up to this week.”

“Do you live here alone?”

“My husband comes home at nights.”

“That will do. Tell him to look out a residence of some kind for you. The furniture is already provided. I will pay a year’s rent in advance and give you a month’s wages. Stay to see all this trumpery removed; then go to your new home. I shall not want you an hour after that.”

“But, Miss, consider. Who will take care of the house?”

“No matter about that. I may sell it—rent it, or shut it up entirely. At all events no one will be wanted to keep watch and ward.”

“Dear me, what a change!” exclaimed the woman, lost in astonishment. “This comes of the old going out and the young coming in their footsteps—I’m much obliged for the furniture—much obliged—but it does seem strange!”

“Don’t trouble yourself about that. As I estimate it, you have no reason to complain. Take what you want for this new home of yours—call in a second-hand furniture dealer to buy the rest—he can give the money to you for anything I care—But have the house empty by to-morrow at noon.”

“Everything—must I take everything, Miss?”

“Yes, everything.”

“What, Mr. Lander’s picture—must I sell that?”

Cora hesitated, turned pale, and then, with an air of desperation, answered:

“Yes, that above all things.”

“What, sell your own father’s picture, Miss!” said the woman, looking at Cora with new distrust.

Cora shrunk back as if the woman had given her a blow. She had not been sufficiently on her guard with this low-bred woman, who could feel what she had forgotten. A cloud of scarlet swept over her face at the thought. Then her quick wit asserted itself.

“It is not a good likeness; I do not prize a portrait which distorts its object. That is why I wish it taken down.”

“Oh!” said the woman. “His daughter is the best judge, but it seemed to me natural as life.”

Cora swept the subject away with a motion of her hand.

“I saw a little room over the hall,” she said, “with things in it that seemed newer than the rest: at any rate there is nothing that I remember; have that ready for me to sleep in. Tell your husband to find out some good gardener and have all these straggling vines and bushes tied up, properly cut and roll what little grass there is and trim the flower-beds. There is a marble fountain in the yard, dry as a desert. Have the water thrown in and order the gardener to bring some aquatic plants.”

“Some what, marm?”

“Plants that live with their roots in the water—some of those broad-leaved Ethiopian lilies, and—and—. He will know best what to bring—I want mosses, too, and plenty of fern roots—but I will speak with the gardener myself. Let your husband find one to-day, I will give him my directions in the morning.”

The woman, still half bewildered, promised all that she required, but she did it like one in a dream. She could hardly believe it a reality when Cora entered the hired carriage she had left before the gate and drove away.

It is true money can almost annihilate time itself. By the terms of that will found in Amos Lander’s room his daughter came into full possession of her property, with all its uses, at once. The will had been admitted to probate without question, and a large sum of money was found in one of the city banks subject to her order. Never in her life before had she possessed personal control of large sums of money. Like most other young persons under the protection of their elders, she had found all her wants supplied without much responsibility. Her dependent position had made this irksome. From day to day she had longed for the independence which money gives—thirsted to spend gold without a thought of economy or fear of questioning. Virginia had never known this feeling, and her indifference, no doubt, sprang out of a position directly opposite to that of her cousin. She would have felt no pleasure in the excitement which burned in scarlet on Cora’s cheek and made her eyes sparkle like stars.

The first thing that Cora Lander did was to search for a fashionable intelligence office and inquire for servants of a certain class, peculiarly difficult to obtain. A woman of education and some refinement, not very young nor really handsome, but to a certain extent a gentlewoman, was particularly wanted. Her duties would be manifold, but then there was no trouble about compensation to a person that suited. She would be expected to act as housekeeper for a very small family, as lady’s maid when such services were required, and, indeed, make herself generally useful, but no really hard labor would be required of her. Did the gentleman at the desk know such a person?

The man shook his head. He knew plenty of housekeepers, and ladies’ maids without number; but the exact combination of qualities desired by the young lady was not easily found.

“But when I tell you that wages are of no consequence, that I am ready to give any premium for the woman I am in search of, will not that secure her?”

The gentleman at the desk removed the pen from behind his ear, ran it down page after page of a book he opened, paused, looked up, then shook his head, answering Cora’s eager question if he had found what she wanted, despondently.

There was a person that might have answered, perhaps, only she was a foreigner, just come over.

That would answer. Was she lady-like? Did she dress well? Was she a trifle ugly?

The young lady had almost described the person in his mind. She was lady-like, about thirty-five, and dressed neatly, as a lady should, but there was one fatal drawback, she spoke no English.

Spoke no English, there was no objection to that; indeed it was rather a recommendation—but what language did she speak? German and a little French. Better and better. Where was the person? She would be wanted immediately. In the neighborhood—how fortunate! What was her name?

“Alice Ruess.”

“Married or single?”

Indeed the gentleman behind the desk could not tell, but she looked like a woman who had known trouble, so he took it that she was or had been married.

“Would he send for this person at once?”

“A boy had already gone—would the young lady sit down and wait?”

Cora sat down within the sacred enclosure which held the desk and its proprietor, who was averse to losing time, and so turning easily on his stool, made some professional inquiries regarding the other servants that had been inquired for.

A good laundry woman and the best cook that could be procured for money. There might be a little time given for a first-class chambermaid, but these two were indispensable.

“The man at the desk had his eye on exactly the persons wanted. Would it be any objection if the laundry woman was black?”

No, that would be an advantage.

Then there would be no trouble about the matter. A cook and laundry woman would be on hand—but what name? Where should they be sent? Mrs. Seymour, No— street—all right. Just in time—here comes the German woman, all in black and neat as a new pin. Cora half rose from her seat and saw a well-formed, light-haired, and blue-eyed woman, neither handsome nor ugly, but with a worn and rather sad expression, coming into the office.

“Ah, madam, we are in luck; hadn’t an idea we could get you a situation, and here it is dropping into your lap, like a ripe peach; just have a little talk with this lady.”

The man spoke in execrable French, and opening the gate of his enclosure, let the woman in as an especial recognition of the style and beauty of the fair lady who sat there scrutinizing the stranger through her veil. Alice Ruess passed through the gate and Cora addressed her at once, but, a little to the man’s disappointment, she used neither French nor English, but spoke to the woman in German.

The conversation was not long, half that Cora wished to say was left for another time; but she studied that face well, and drawing her own conclusions therefrom, hired her at once, depending rather on what she supposed than on anything she knew of her fitness for the place.

When the preliminaries were arranged, Cora gave a satisfactory examination of the dress worn by her new recruit, and without farther ceremony requested her to step into her carriage, which stood at the door. A morning of tiresome shopping was before her, and she wanted a companion.

Alice Ruess was ready. She was afraid her alpaca dress was not quite good enough, but if the lady did not object to that, nothing would give her more pleasure than a ride. So the two went out together, followed by the proprietor of the office, who opened the carriage door for them, leaving a twenty dollar bank note, his share of the transaction, on his desk.

Feeling for the first time all the importance of a large bank account, Cora drove from warehouse to warehouse, giving prodigal and almost unlimited orders for the adornment of a house not yet divested of its costly old-fashioned furniture.

She made all her purchases in the name of Mrs. Alice Ruess, who was a stranger in the city, she said, and speaking no English, had entreated her aid in furnishing a house she had taken. Her friend was wealthy—very wealthy, she asserted, and cared little for prices. She only, stipulated regarding the time—that was important to her—everything must be done at once. Three days was the latest moment she could give.

This Cora said as she went from store to store, buying costly hangings, carpets, china, linen, pictures, statuettes bronzes, and all the multifarious articles that go to make up a sumptuous establishment.

“Crowd the house with as many workmen as you please,” she said; “my friend does not care for the confusion, but in a week her house must be in order. Beyond that time she cannot wait.”

The dealers promised, one and all. A customer who gave such unlimited orders, and was so indifferent to prices, did not often fall in their way. Of course everything else must be put aside for her accommodation.

Alice Ruess behaved beautifully, taking just as much interest in these proceedings as seemed becoming, and giving a quiet attention to what passed, which convinced the dealers that she was not altogether indifferent to the value of their goods or an incompetent judge of their qualities. Indeed, she once or twice prevented Cora buying an inferior article, for, with all her prodigality, that young lady was rash and inexperienced, as youth will be, and really required the quiet counsellor who moved at her elbow. Of course all the conversation which passed between these two was carried on in French, and, pleading her friend’s ignorance of our currency, Cora paid the bills in money as she went, sometimes joking gracefully about the pleasure of handling so much money, though it did belong to another person.

Thus Cora Lander went on with the sad-faced German woman by her side, receiving what seemed to others the reflected homage of her friend’s wealth; but knowing that it was all her own, she enjoyed it to the utmost. Never in her life had she felt the power of property so exultantly. Truly, if crime produced such results, she was content to be criminal.

Among other things, Cora purchased such dresses as could be worn indoors. She hated the deep mourning, which was in fact a part of her fraud, and resolved to cast it off in the privacy of her married life. If she could help it, no one thing should remind her of the days that were gone, or the man whose wealth she was squandering. Among dressmakers and milliners, as with the rest, money proved itself omnipotent. There was no danger that Cora Lander’s nuptials, private as they must be, would cloud themselves with mourning. It was dark when Cora returned to the house, which seemed gloomy as a sepulchre to her, for, with all its memorials of the past, it was in truth a dreary place for one who knew its history, and sometimes felt the weight of a perpetuating sin on her conscience. She had left Alice Ruess at her boarding house and was quite alone.

She found the woman and her husband ready to receive her. “Those movables” had at last settled themselves upon their conviction. They only feared that she might change her mind and withdraw her promise, which would in fact, secure a little fortune to them. Hoping to please her, they had lighted up the dining-room and spread a somewhat dainty repast there; but she could remember sitting by that table with her uncle and mother, when they were all a united family. Then the widow and her little girl were grateful for the shelter that good uncle had so kindly given them, and opened their hearts to his daughter with maternal and sisterly affection. The very last time she had been at that table Mr. Lander had given her the watch she wore, with words of such gentle affection that she remembered how gratefully tears had crowded to her eyes. Now she was in that room again, and how? An imposter, a swindler, an ingrate. For the moment she became conscious of all this, and saw herself as she was.

The chandelier burned brightly over her head, revealing familiar pictures on the wall and pouring a flood of light on the silver, glass and delicate china, which had been hastily brought forth and polished for her use. A faint cloud of steam came from the silver tea-pot which stood upon the tray, hot from the kitchen fire. A nicely cooked and well-selected repast stood temptingly ready. Near the table waited the woman who would be enriched on the morrow. She bore the consciousness of this on her smiling face. Before the waiter a large, cosy chair had been drawn, tempting a weary guest with its crimson cushions. Cora was tired and hungry, for she had eaten nothing since morning. She threw her crape bonnet and black shawl on a sofa, pushed the hair away from her temples with both hands with a feeling of relief—for she had worn the bonnet since morning—and sat wearily down in the chair.

The woman came forward and poured some tea into the china cup, with its exquisite whiteness enriched by a deep border of gold and purple.

“I hope the tea will suit you,” she said, obsequiously, for the promise of to-morrow was still in her mind. “It is hard to get cream in the city; but my old man found some. Take a waffle; I wasn’t exactly the cook, but as a little girl you used to like my waffles.”

Cora helped herself to one of the waffles and began to drink her tea with a relish. She was far too weary for conversation, and allowed the woman to talk on, scarcely heeding her.

“I suppose you remember the silver,” said the woman, coming gradually round to a question she was longing to ask.

“Yes,” answered Cora, glancing wearily at the tea-set, “I remember when my aunt bought it.”

“Your aunt, Miss!” exclaimed the woman. “Why she never brought the value of a silver thimble into this house. That tea-set was made especially for your mother not a year before she died.”

A faint crimson dashed over Cora’s face but she answered, quietly enough:

“Did I not say my mother? Surely I could have mentioned no one else; though I am so weary that the words change on my lips.”

“You said aunt, young lady, and seemed to connect her with an idea of silver plate, a thing I’ll be bound she never saw till she came to this house. I’m poor enough, goodness knows, but, if folks tell true, that lady, with all her airs didn’t begin to come up to me in the way of property, and never would have done if it hadn’t been for your father. Dear old man he was as good to her as good can be, to say nothing of her daughter, who was the spitefullest, worst tempered young ’un that I ever waited on. Has she got over them tantrums of hers, Miss, I’d like to know.”

“She—my cousin—of whom are you speaking, woman?” cried Cora, flashing an angry glance over the table.

“Dear me, how much you look like her this minute!” replied the woman, laughing nervously. “That was where it lay—nothing on earth could be more lovely than your disposition. I never saw that look on your sweet face before in my life. It’s got by living with her so long, I suppose. When she was good-natured, no one could tell you apart hardly; but when she got the evil one agoing, you were no more alike than chalk’s like cheese. I could always tell you apart by the temper.”

Before the woman ceased speaking, the angry flash had been forced back from Cora’s face, and a smile stirred her lips.

“I loved my cousin very much,” she said, sweetly. “She was a little quick at times.”

“It wasn’t exactly what I should call quick,” said the woman.

“No, no, perhaps not; but I am sorry to tell you she is not altogether right in her mind.”

“Well now, did you ever—I shouldn’t wonder. She had a sort of disposition that never suited me, and then her mother made it worse and worse, indulging her so.”

“It was injudicious, I dare say; but Aunt Lander suffers for it now,” answered Cora, leaning her head sadly on one hand. “It is a terrible thing to see a young creature like my cousin out of her mind.”

“Speaking about the silver,” said the woman, coming desperately around to her personal interests again. “I suppose you would like that to be kept back—not thrown in with the rest, I mean. Then there is the china, and glass, and ivory-handled knives. Shall I keep them back too?”

“What are you saying—what is it about, the silver?” inquired Cora, starting out of her amiability a little too abruptly.

“I was asking if you wished to keep that and the—”

“Keep that, no! Glass, china, knives—have I not told you to sweep everything out of my sight? They take away my appetite—they torment me! If I hadn’t been hungry as a wolf, I could not have endured them, even for one meal.”

She spoke with startling emphasis, and was pale to the very lips with some suppressed feeling. The woman, though well pleased with her words, stood gazing upon her in dumb surprise. What could have angered the young lady so?

Again Cora caught that look and saw danger in it—the great danger of perfect recognition. With a power of self-control that crime had taught her, she gradually softened down from the perilous vehemence which she felt to be so unwise.

“I have a detestation of old things,” she said; “silver among the rest. Besides, it was my father’s wish that the furniture of this house should be changed entirely. I but carry out what I know would have been his wishes when I give them to a faithful servant like yourself.”

The woman’s face brightened and her voice bespoke the contentment that had come upon her with this understanding of all her anxieties regarding the smaller valuables of the establishment.

“I’m sure, so long as I and my husband live, we shall be grateful to you, Miss, and the good gentleman who is gone, for all your kindness.”

Cora laughed, a light, half-mocking laugh, which stung the woman, who was proud in her way.

“Oh, I did not do it out of kindness, and don’t want to be troubled with gratitude, if such a thing exists in the world. I have deprived you, or shall deprive you of a good place, and mean to pay you well for it.”

“But your father, if he wished us to have the things, was kind.”

“My father—I had forgotten.”

“Forgotten your own father, and sitting in the chair he used at this very table! I placed it for you on purpose.”

Cora dropped her knife so suddenly that it broke a piece from the plate she was using. She turned in the chair, saw its heavy oak carvings and its crimson cushions as she had seen them a hundred times when her uncle’s form rested against them. She turned very faint, and starting up, pushed the chair away with all her strength. It seemed as if she were beating her hands against a tombstone.

“What is the matter, Miss? What is it frightens you so?”

Cora forced a smile to her white lips.

“Nothing—nothing—I think your tea was strong enough to make me nervous. Good-night; if my room is ready, I will go to it at once.”