Doubly false

Cora went directly to her house the moment she reached the city. She hated the place now, and nothing but an important purpose would have induced her to enter it. The servants were in possession, all except Lubin, who, loving his art better than money, had left a place where his talent had so little chance of appreciation. The week before, he had discharged himself and sailed for New Orleans. This was good news for Cora; it relieved her visit of half its difficulty. This man had been present at her marriage; he knew of her domestic life, and was therefore dangerous. But he was removed from her path now, and the only person left whose evidence would be fatal was the woman, Alice Ruess; she it was who had gone after the clergyman; she had witnessed the marriage ceremony and held the whole secret in her possession. This woman must be disposed of—but how? Could persuasion or money do it? That was what had brought Cora to the city. Mrs. Lander believed that the trip was taken in order to superintend the new dresses which had been purchased with such liberality for her own wardrobe. But dressmakers were very little in Cora’s mind just then, and while her mother thought her busy with lavender and purple silk, she sat quietly in that little room, conversing with Alice Ruess in the most kindly and social manner. Cora had long noticed that there was something on her humble friend’s mind—not that she called her humble—Cora had too much tact for that, under the circumstances. Indeed, did Alice suppose her so entirely taken up by her own affairs that she had no sympathy for others? On the contrary, she had come now to learn if there was nothing that she could do which might alleviate the sadness that really was mournful. What was it that preyed upon Alice Ruess with such depressed effect?

Alice Ruess had her troubles, poor thing—and very serious ones they were. After a good deal of persuasion, and more caresses than Cora usually bestowed on any one from whom she wanted nothing, the unhappy woman was prevailed upon to admit that she was a married woman and had a husband in California, whom she had not seen in three years. He had left Germany, promising to send for her the moment he was settled in the gold region; but year after year had gone by without bringing the promised summons. So she had saved a little money by hard work and paid her passage to New York, where she was compelled to remain for want of means to go farther. But she was hoarding her wages, every cent of them, and in the course of another year hoped to have enough to pay her passage to San Francisco. It was a long time to wait, but necessity knew no laws; she had been compelled to patience before, and must endure it again.

Then it was that Cora came out in a new and beautiful character. Why had she never been applied to before? It was cruel, it was unjust. Did Alice consider her the most hard-hearted creature in the world? Of course she should go at once to California. In the very next steamer if money could do it. What, separate a husband from his wife for the want of a little money, the thing was barbarous! Alice was in an ecstasy of gratitude. She loved her husband, and was dying to proceed at once on her pilgrimage in search of him. This munificence in her employer brought genuine tears into her eyes. She fell upon her knees, buried her face in Cora’s lap, and called down blessings upon her, such blessings as a good woman would have felt to the core of her heart. Even this calculating creature; took a sort of glory to herself when the grateful voice, broken with sobs, told how happy this goodness had made her. She had so long pined in silence for the means generously offered now, that it was a benefit beyond her realization.

Cora was glad to know that the means she was using for her own safety had given so much happiness. She liked Alice, and was grateful to her for asking so few questions and receiving all her sympathy with such genuine good faith.

Cora slept at the Fifth Avenue Hotel that night; she still retained rooms there, expecting to return in the winter. As for sleeping in that house, her very soul recoiled from it. She shuddered when Alice proposed it, and put the woman away from her with both hands.

“Not for the world!” she said, breaking into a passion.

She checked herself instantly; it was no part of her purpose to inform Alice of her discontent. Her tools must be used blindly. No old diplomat was ever more reticent in his craft than this young woman, to whom duplicity came by heart. She could not always restrain those outbreaks of feeling which belonged to her double character. But her mind, ever on the alert, had explanations and excuses ready for adroit use on such occasions, and her resources were always sufficient for the occasion.

“You forget,” she added, with a saddened face, “he is not here, and without him I think my heart would break, surrounded by these precious associations. Alice, you know what it is?”

Alice began to cry from tender sympathy.

“But Monsieur will return, he has not gone for long,” she said, with a kind effort at consolation. “The great God is good, he will not allow Madame, who is so generous, so munificent, to suffer a long separation, such as has taken away all my youth.”

Cora was a splendid actress. When she entered into a part like this, it was with all her soul. She put a handkerchief, made of filmy linen and lace, to her eyes, and shook her head mournfully.

“It is a long time even now, Alice.”

“But Monsieur will return. He will shoot many birds, grow tired, and come home. Oh, Madame Seymour, I will pray very much for that!”

Cora started as this name was uttered. A gleam of pleasure came to her face, which Alice thought had sprung out of the comfort given by her assurances. But Cora remembered that his name of Seymour was the only one that even Alice ever had known her by. Here she was doubly guarded.

“I see Madame will take hope,” said Alice, cheered by her fancied success.

“But I am so young—so foolish, Alice! To me weeks seem like years when he is away.”

“Ah yes, I understand. My years have been so long—so long!”

“But there shall be only weeks now between you and your husband. By the very next steamer you shall go.”

“Ah, Madame, you are so good!”

“I will send down, get your ticket and arrange about the state-room this afternoon. Now I think of it, get into the carriage and we will drive to the office at once.”

The grateful woman put on her bonnet with trembling hands, and throwing a mantilla over her shoulders, stood in readiness to go, more glad at heart, than she had been for years.

They got into a carriage, which stood at the door, and drove down to the Bowling Green almost in silence. Both were cheerful—Alice, because she was going to her husband; Cora from a consciousness that, one by one, the shackles of her married life were giving way. When they reached the office, Cora gave Alice her purse.

“Get the ticket, arrange everything, and keep the rest, you will want it.”

“Oh, Madame!”

“There, there; go at once or the choice of berths will be less,” said Cora, waving aside the poor woman’s gratitude, which, being thoroughly genuine, began to rebuke her a little.

Alice went into the office, and came out with her ticket, smiling gratefully.

“When does the steamer sail, Alice?”

“In three days, Madam.”

“Well, I will drive you home; you must begin to pack up at once, three days are soon here and gone.”

“In a month—in one little month, I shall see him!”

“And this makes you so happy.”

“So happy—oh, mon Dieu, so happy!”

“Well, here we are. Be ready in time.”

“But the house, Madame—what shall I do about that?”

“Leave it with that stout black woman—I forget her name—but she seems honest.”

“As madame pleases—Hagar is very good negar.”

Alice got out of the carriage and Cora drove away, well pleased with her morning’s work. She did not inform Alice Ruess where she was going, but promised to call again or send for her; so the woman was well content.

After driving a block or two, Cora pulled the check-string and ordered the coachmen to return. Alice saw the carriage and came out.

“Come here, close to the door,” she said.

Alice obeyed, and Cora whispered to her:

“If my husband should return, tell him I have gone up the river, and do not speak of my coming down again, that might keep him here and I should lose so much time, you know.”

“But I shall see you again, Madame?”

“Yes; oh yes, I shall see you off, never fear. But remember what I have just told you.”

“Certainly, Madame.”

After this, Cora drove away for good, and actually did go to Mrs. Lander’s dressmaker and torment the poor woman terribly with a confused discussion about trimmings—white, lavender, purple and gray—with which the second mourning was to be illuminated into a phase at once sorrowful and desponding. The happy medium in such cases is difficult to reach.

Three days from that, Cora drove to the door of her own residence and took Alice into the carriage. The luggage was already on board, and Alice Ruess had no friends to weep over or bid farewell. When once seated in the carriage, she said:

“Oh, Madame, Monsieur came last night.”

“What, my husband?” Spite of herself Cora’s voice was sharp and startled.

“Yes, Madame, Monsieur Seymour. He was grieved—very sad indeed, when I told him Madame was up the river.”

“And I have missed him—of course he took the train at once.”

“Perhaps. He went away but said nothing.”

Cora looked at her watch.

“The steamer sails at twelve, I have plenty of time. It is only a few hours delay.”

She spoke carelessly, but her face was like ashes in its paleness. They drove down to the wharf, crowded with drays, carriages, wheelbarrows, and swarms of people of all grades and character, from the rich aristocrat to the humblest orange woman. Men and women crowded the deck and swarmed up the gangway, jostling each other, some carrying carpet bags, some holding great bouquets, and others, who came late, dragging valises and trunks desperately upward by one handle.

It was a scene of wild confusion. Women leaned down from the deck, searching for those they loved and were leaving among the crowd; some with a last gift of flowers in their hands, others flinging kisses from lips quivering with grief, others again weeping piteously.

Through this crowd Alice Ruess made her way with a little satchel in her hand and a look of touching joy on her face. She had nothing to leave, but all the world to follow. In a few weeks she would see her husband. This was the happy thought that went singing through her mind as she was hustled up to the deck and stood there, eager for the bell to ring, for she considered every minute lost which was not bearing her onward.

Cora leaned out of the carriage, interested in the woman she had helped. Indeed she felt almost the sensation which springs from a generous action. The poor creature’s intense gratitude seemed to make a virtue of her selfishness.

Finally the bell rang, the great cable was uncoiled and followed the heaving vessel like a huge snake till rough hands drew it up, wet and dripping. The ponderous wheels began to buffet the waters; the great vessel swept out into the river and the boom of a gun sent back her last farewell. Cora saw the slender figure of Alice, waving a handkerchief, through the smoke, and drew back into the carriage with tears in her eyes. Whatever her motive was, she had done good to that helpless little woman, and loved her a little as we all love those we have benefitted. But the words she said five minutes after had little of goodness in them.

“Thank Heaven, that possible danger is escaped. This change of name will be like a tombstone on the woman should he ever attempt to search her out.”

In going down to the office that day, Cora had suggested that Alice should take out her ticket under a changed name. “It will give your husband a pleasant surprise,” she said.

“You will have the happiness of seeing his heart leap into his eyes. But the commonplace warning of a passenger list would spoil everything.” Alice acquiesced. She would have done almost anything at the bare suggestion of a lady who had so generously befriended her.

This was the reason that Cora congratulated herself with such earnestness. All traces of Alice Ruess were lost when that California steamer left the harbor of New York.

From the wharf, Cora drove to a law office in Nassau street. The man she went to consult was a perfect stranger to her, and she seemed resolved to keep him so, for, on entering his office, she carefully drew the thick crape veil over her face, and her figure had been as much as possible enveloped in a large mourning shawl. She had only a few words to ask of the gentleman: “Would he give her his attention just for one moment? A friend of hers had been unfortunate in marrying a man afterwards condemned to a term of service in the State’s prison, would that fact relieve her from all marriage obligations?”

Cora had been a little unfortunate in her lawyer, who happened to be a clerk in the office. Seeing a stylish-looking lady come in, who evidently mistook him for the superior, he assumed the position and gave his opinion with confidence.

“No doubt of it—no doubt of it. My dear Madam, the lady is free as air. No marriage ceremony can bind any woman to a convict.”

“You are quite sure of this?”

The impromptu lawyer smiled in a superior way, and gently waved his hand.

“Those who know me, dear lady, would not find it necessary to ask that question.”

“Excuse me,” answered Cora from behind her veil, “but my friend is naturally anxious to be certain. Her position is a very delicate one.”

“No doubt of it; but the question is a very simple one and easily answered. Why, common sense teaches one that it must be an unjust law which ties an innocent woman to her guilty husband when crime itself separates them. What if a man is condemned for life?”

The petty impostor seemed disposed to enter into an argument on the subject, being rather anxious in his own mind; but Cora was only too glad that his convictions were so positive, and, taking out her porte-monnaie, she handed him a bank bill of considerable value, scarcely heeding the amount.

The man took it, cast a sharp glance at the face, which only gave an imperfect outline beneath that provoking veil, hesitated and said, “Madam,” as if she had spoken.

She turned away, impatient of his scrutiny.

“Hem, hem, Madam, perhaps you will expect some change?” he said, folding the bill and leisurely placing it in his pocket-book.

“It is no matter,” she answered, moving away.

“But, Madam, Madam, I insist.”

The fellow was closing his pocket-book all the time. She saw the action, and turned away, despising him in her heart. There is, after all, an aristocracy of crime in this world. This woman, whose life was one great fraud, dared to look with contempt upon the man who could commit a petty offence against herself. She did not regret the money he had pocketed so adroitly, for the information he had given her was worth ten times that amount, but her lip curled with contempt of the man.

“To the Hudson River Depot.”

Cora was eager to reach home now—eager to commence the contest which lay before her. No, she thought better of it. Seymour would never venture to come into the neighborhood of her residence while Clarence Brooks was there. She would drive to the house in town and make sure of an interview with her husband, should he have returned to it. Her haughty spirit was now prepared for the issue—prepared to repudiate and defy him, if that course seemed best to her. She drove up to the house and entered it, almost expecting to meet the man who had been all the world to her only a few months before in deadly enmity. Whether the contest would be one of force or craft she had not determined, but she was resolved that it should be final and decisive.

He was not there.