When Isabel looked into her mirror next morning, the image shown back fairly startled her. Day by day during this eventful week the glass had helped her to grow familiar with reddened eyes, with harsh, ageing lines, and with a pallor which no devices of the toilet could efface. It was not so much an added accentuation of these which riveted her gaze, now, upon the mirror, as the suggestion of a new face—of a stranger’s countenance, reflecting meanings and thoughts of the uncommon kind.
She studied the face at first with an almost impersonal interest; then as the brain associated these lineaments with her own, and made their expression a part of her own spiritual state, she said to this other self in the glass, audibly:
“Another week of this will make you an old woman.” She added, after a pause of fascinated yet critical scrutiny: “Yes, and a wicked woman, too!” There has been what one can only hope is an intelligible reluctance, from the beginning of this recital, to essay analysis or portrayal of Isabel’s thoughts and motives. A complex, contradictory character like hers, striving now to assimilate, now to sway the simple, straightforward, one-stringed natures with which it is environed, may be illustrated; it is too great a task to dissect it. Yet for the once we may venture to look into this troubled mind.
A wicked woman! The phrase which she had addressed aloud to the mocking image in the glass, in mingled doubt and irony, clung to her meditations. Had she ever meant to be wicked—ever deliberately, or even consciously, chosen evil instead of good? No! There was no dubious reservation in her answer. Yet within the week—oh, the horrible week!—she had come to occupy a moral position for which hell could not hold too relentless or fierce a punishment. She had hugged to her heart thoughts which, when they are linked with acts, go to expiation on the gallows. She shuddered now at the recollection of them; she could recall that she had shuddered then, too. Yet all the same these thoughts were a part of her—belonged to her. She had not repelled them as alien, or as unwelcome. Even while in terror at their mien, she had embraced them. Was this not all wickedness?
The reply came, in sophistical self-defense, that no one act or emotion of a life could be judged by itself. The antecedent circumstances, leading up to it, must be taken into account. She had been borne along on the current of a career shaped for her by others. She was not responsible—she had never fought with her destiny—she had done nothing but seek to bring some flowers and light and color into the desolate voyage of life. Was it fair to say that these little innocent, womanish efforts to soften a sterile existence were the cause of the shipwreck—that it was these which had brought her so suddenly, dazed and terrified, into the very breakers on the sinister rocks of crime? No, the answer came again; surely it could not be fair.
Yet she had hated her husband; she had been overjoyed, even while she was affrighted, by the news of his death—or at least there was a tremulous sensation very like joy; she had hailed as her deliverer the young man whom her wild fancy made responsible for that death—yes, had even in her frenzy kissed his hand, the hand which she then believed to have blood upon it, his brother’s blood! her husband’s blood! Were not these the thoughts and actions of a wicked woman? What difference was there between her and the vilest murderess confined for life in a penitentiary?
Or no! What nonsense this was! What single thing had she said or done to bring on the catastrophe? It was an accident—everybody knew that now. But even if it had not been an accident, how would she have been to blame? Was it her fault that she was pleasing in men’s eyes, or that Seth had been attracted by her, and had been sympathetic to her? How could she have helped it? Was there any reason why she should have tried to help it? Was it wrong for her, exiled as she was to this miserable farm life, to make a friend of her cousin—her husband’s brother? And if they had grown to be attached to each other, could it be wondered at?
And it had all been so innocent, too! What single compromising word, even, had ever been spoken! Might not the most blameless of women have had just such a pretty little romantic friendship, without dream of harm?
As for the frantic things she had thought and said on that awful forenoon after the discovery, she strove to put them away from her memory, as born of a hysterical, wholly irresponsible state.
But they would come back, no matter how often banished.
Then, too—perhaps worst of all, for honest John seemed to lay particular stress upon it—was the terrible declaration she had made to Annie. About this there could be no self-deception. She would not pretend to herself that this had been done through any but revengeful? spiteful motives—pure cruelty, in fact. But was she to be thus coolly pushed aside, her romance shattered, her dear day-dream dissipated—and not to be justified in striking back?
This conceited boy—she was able thus to think of Seth now, in his absence, and in the light of the affront she felt he had put upon her—and this country school-teacher, to come billing and cooing in the very hour of her supreme excitement—did they not deserve just what they had received? After all, her words had done no permanent harm.. Doubtless by this time they had all been cleared up. And if Miss Annie did suffer a little, what better was she than other people, to be free all her life from heartaches?
But then came a mental picture of Annie’s calm, sweet, lightful face transfixed with speechless horror at the brutal words—and after it, close and searching, the question: “Why should I have stabbed Annie? She was always kindness itself to me. Was it not heartless to make that poor girl suffer?” And there followed in her mind, as an echo of her first exclamation to the mirror—that had gathered reverberating force from all the thoughts we have striven to trace—the haunting cry: “A wicked woman!”
Afternoon came, and the battle still went on. Bitter condemnation of her own conduct struggled with angry pleas of grievance against others, and the conflict wearied her into what threatened to be a sick headache. The idea of getting out into the open air and seeking relief in a walk, which had been dormantly in her mind all day, finally took form, and led her outside the homestead for the first time since her husband’s death.
Once outside, she walked aimlessly through the orchard—in preference to the high road, where she might meet neighbors—toward the little family graveyard. It was not until she had nearly reached this spot that she recalled having heard that Seth, too, came here on that terrible night. The recollection brought an added sense of all the wrongs she held to have been done her. She stood for a long time by the old board fence, with its coating of dry, mildew-like moss on the weather-beaten surfaces turned to the north, and its inhospitable hedging of brown, half-bare briars, and looked in reverie upon the tombs within the enclosure.
Three generations of the Fairchilds lay here under the straggling mat of withered strawberry vines. She saw the low blue-slate slabs, nearly covered now by aspiring weeds and brambles, which modestly pleaded in antique letters that the original shoemaker, Roger, and his lowly spouse might not be altogether forgotten. Rising ostentatiously above these timid, ancient memorials, as if with intent to divert attention from their humility, was the marble obelisk marking the resting-place of the family’s greatest man, the Hon. Seth Fairchild. The monument was not so white or so imposing now as it once had been, and the proud inscription setting forth how its subject had been “twice Senator of the State of New York,” was almost illegible from the storm-stains and mould on its venerable front. There were some other stones, gray and small, tipping humbly toward the central monolith, as if mutely begging at least a little share of the Senator’s greatness for his wife and sisters, and nearer were two plain modern slabs recounting the sole interesting facts of the colorless lives of Lemuel and Cicely Fair-child—that they had been alive, and now were dead.
Here still nearer her, almost at her feet, the widow saw some pegs driven in the ground, with string stretched around them to form a long rectangle. The sight brought no thrill to her. She was conscious of all its meaning, but felt herself scarcely interested. In life she had owed nothing but dislike to the man whose last coming these signs of preparation betokened. His death had shocked her at first by its fearful suddenness; it did not especially disturb her now, save at times with a furtive elation at the accompanying thought that at last she was free. Her thoughts were with the living—and their relation to those long since dead.
If these rambling thoughts could have been summarized in words they would have run in this fashion:
“What has all your family pride brought you, all your planning and manoeuvring, you dull countrymen? I wasn’t good enough for you, eh? Your breed must conspire against me, eh? and treat me like an interloper, an outsider, eh? You thought I was to be brought here too, did you, when my time arrived, and be snubbed and bullied into some back corner like the rest of your wives, while my husband, ‘the Congressman,’ had a big monument like this of your old humbug, the Senator? And you expected to patronize me, or cut me dead, as the living dolts here on the turnpike have done, did you? Well, you are fooled! I’ve escaped you! I shall never come here but once again—to bring you your ‘Congressman.’ You can have him and welcome. And that old cat of an aunt of his, she will come presently, too, and I wish you much joy of her! And perhaps you will give up your idea, then, that you amount to anything, or ever will amount to anything. The farm is going to a young man who will sell it, and who doesn’t care a cent for the whole crowd of you, and who will live in a city, and eat with his fork, and forget that there ever were such people as you. And he will forget, too, that——”
She came to a full stop in her meditations. Yes, Seth would forget her, too. She had no illusions on this point. Perhaps this was too kindly a view of it, even—he might be compelled to remember her by sheer force of his bitterness toward her. There could be no doubt, after his cruel words on the eventful forenoon—their last meeting—that he scorned and despised her. What an idiot she had been to disclose to him her thoughts—those mad fancies and beliefs of that frantic morning! She might have known that the idea of his fighting his brother, on her account, was preposterous. What did he care about her? He had been nice with her, had written her pretty, graceful letters when she asked him to do so, and had sent her books to read—that was all. There was nothing else. She had been a fool to dream that there was anything else. He would sell the farm, and go back to Tecumseh, and marry Annie—yes, marry Annie! And they, too, would refer to her now and then, and comment on her wickedness, and hope that they might never have a daughter like her. That would be all.
She turned from the little enclosure of graves, without giving them another thought. The mental picture which she conjured up of the young couple, contented by a fireside of their own, perhaps with a child, tore at her heart-strings.
In the farm-yard she was met by Mr. Ansdell, who was evidently watching for her, and who introduced himself courteously.
“The Coroner is here,” he said, “with some medical gentlemen, and there are also your late husband’s partner, Mr. Hubbard, who accompanied me from New York last night, and the District Attorney and some others. In a couple of hours or so we expect to be able to tell you what brought us. Meanwhile, we are anxious to spare you any possible intrusion—and also a possible scene. It is for this that I have waited outside for you. If you could prolong your walk for that length of time, going to some friend’s house near by, for instance, without saying that anything unusual was transpiring here——”
“Yes, I will go,” she answered. “Will two hours be long enough?”
“I hope so,” he said, bowing his thanks.
She walked out through the great swing-gate to the turnpike, and idly chose the westward turning, along under the poplars. The curious incident of all these visitors at the house did not excite her attention. Her mind was too busy torturing itself with that marriage which was already spoken of as assured.
At the stile by the thorns, the idea of going to the Warren house suddenly occurred to her. It was a bold, purposeless, almost crazy thought; perhaps for those very reasons it commended itself to her mood. She felt herself impelled alike by good and malignant impulses to cross the stile; she walked down the thorn path, scarcely knowing whether her purpose was to bless or to curse.
The door was opened by Samantha, whose scared face took on an added expression of anxiety on recognizing the visitor.
“Go into the parlor, ’n’ I’ll light the stove fer yeh,” she whispered. “Th’ old lady’s very laow. Soon’s she comes hum from schewl I’ll send Annie in to see yeh.”
While Isabel sat over the stove in the cold, austere parlor of the Warren house, with its ancient furniture, the never failing photograph album, and those huge pink shells on the mantle-shelf without which no rural home used to be complete—waiting for she scarcely knew what—strange things were going forward in the home of the Fairchilds.
On the forenoon of this same day, Thursday, there had been a gathering in the office of the Thessaly Banner of Liberty. It was the publication day of the paper, but for once it went to press without enlisting even the most careless scrutiny, let alone the solicitude, of its editor-proprietor. He had more serious business on hand. Closeted with him in the little editorial room, whose limited space had rarely before been so taxed, were Beekman, Ansdell, the District Attorney, the Sheriff, and the younger of the dead man’s two New York partners, a shrewd, silent, long-faced man. Seth had desired to be of the party but his brother had sent him off, to return after dinner.
These men gravely discussed some subjects with which our readers are familiar, and some now first brought to light. John had a letter from Annie, sent by hand the previous evening, detailing the strange things Milton had said to her about the black mare. Ansdell and Mr. Hubbard, the partner, recited how they had discovered that Albert Fairchild, on the preceding Monday, sold $16,000 worth of government bonds, and the abortive effort he made to so arrange the transfer that it would not be traced. Beekman recalled how the black mare had balked on the edge of the gulf the day after the murder—for they all thus characterized it now. Later, the Coroner came in by appointment, and in the presence of the dreaded District Attorney was meekness itself. He even heard that two physicians were to go out with the party, and make an examination, without taking offence.
After the noon-day dinner the gathering was reinforced by the two doctors and by Seth, the latter devoured by curiosity and vexed at being kept so long in the dark. Soon after, all of the party save the Sheriff made their way to the Fairchild house, driving by twos or threes, and at intervals, to avoid exciting suspicion. It was after the arrival of the last division that Ansdell met Isabel, and advised her to stay away from the house for a time.
The two surgeons and the Coroner went silently into the parlor, and closed the door behind them. In the living-room Ansdell, Hubbard, John, and the District Attorney took chairs around the stove, having given word that Milton, who was off on the other side of the hill, arranging the sale of some apples, should be sent in to them when he arrived, which could not be very long now. In the kitchen, opening back from the living-room as this in turn did from the parlor, Seth and Beekman sat with the three women of the household.
These latter had been told that something was going on, or rather had inferred it from being forbidden to leave the room, and were agog with puzzled excitement. They had no clue, save a vague understanding that important personages were in the front portions of the house, but Alvira and Melissa stole unhappy glances toward Seth, in uneasy fear that the worst suspicions born of Samantha’s recital were to be realized in fact. Aunt Sabrina, sitting with her shawl wrapped about her gaunt shoulders, and with her feet on a piece of wood in the oven, did not know of this story which gave point to the other women’s anxiety, but was in misery between a deep yearning to learn what had happened, and a pessimistic conviction that it must be another addition to the Fairchilds’ load of calamities.
They heard Milton drive up presently, and hail Dana with instructions to put the horse out, and a query concerning the several strange vehicles under the shed. Then he came into the kitchen, stamping his feet with the cold, and walking straight to the stove to warm his hands. It was growing dark in the low room, and he did not recognize Beekman.
Seth delivered his errand, saying that his brother John wished to see Milton, as soon as he returned, in the living-room. The hired man gave the speaker a curious glance, and, after a moment or two of hand warming, went in to learn what was wanted.
Almost as he closed the door behind him, the Sheriff entered the kitchen from the outside, and after an interrogative glance toward Beekman, which the latter answered by a nod, drew up a chair leisurely by the stove.
“Who’d a thought it ’d a turned out so cold, ‘fore the moon changed?” he asked of the company collectively. “Hev yeh got any cider abaout handy? ’N’ a daoughnut, tew, ef yeh don’t mine.”
While Melissa was in the cellar, the Sheriff, who was a Spartacus man and a stranger to both Seth and the females, asked of Beekman: “What did yeh agree on fer a sign?”
“Th’ shakin’ of th’ stove.”
Seth had been annoyed all day at the pains taken by John to keep the facts of the enterprise now in hand from him, and he displayed so much of this pique in the glance he now cast from the Sheriff to Beekman, that the latter felt impelled to speak:
“P’raps you disremember my askin’ yeh ’t’ other day ’baout whether yer brother had much money on him that night. Well, we’ve settled thet point. He did hev’—’n’ ’twas a considerable sum tew—‘baout sixteen thaousan’ dollars.”
“No!” Seth’s exclamation was of incredulous surprise.
“Yes, sixteen thaousan’. We knaow it.”
“Oh! I remember now,” said Seth, searching his impressions of the night. “I remember that when I said he might fail to be nominated, he slapped his breast two or three times as if he had something in the pocket. By George! I wonder——”
“Yeh needn’t waste no more time wond’rin’. Thet was it! ’N’ d’yeh knaow what he was goin’ to dew with thet money? No, yeh daon’t! He was agoin’ to buy me! I wouldn’t say this afore aoutsiders; I dunnao’s I’d say it to yeou ef your paper wa’n’t so dum fond o’ pitchin’ into me fer a boss, ’n’ a machine man ez yeh call it, ’n’ thet kine o’ thing. Yer brother hed th’ same idee o’ me thet your paper’s got. He was wrong. They tell me ther air’ some country caounties in th’ State where money makes th’ mare gao. But Jay ain’t one of ’em. Yer brother wanted to git into Congress. Ther was nao chance fer him in New York City. He come up here ’n’ he worked things pooty fine, I’m baoun’ to say, but he slipped up on me. Bribes may dew in yer big cities, but they won’t go daown in Jay. I don’t b’lieve they’s ez much of it done anywhere ez folks think, nuther.”
“But this money, then, was——”
“Lemme go on! P’raps this ’d never be’n faound aout, ef yer brother hadn’t made mistake number tew in pickin’ aout the wust ’n’ meanest cuss in th’ caounty to be his gao-between. I kin tell mean cusses when I see ’em, ’n’ this feller he had was jest the dirtiest scalawag I ever did see. I kin stan’ a scoundrel in a way ef he’s bright abaout it, but this was a reg’lar, natchul born fool. Somehaow in th’ kentry, these men don’t seem to hev no sense. Ef they’re goin’ to rob a man, or set his barns afire, or kill him, they dew it in the darnedest, clumsiest saort o’ way, so they’re sure to git faound aout the minute anybody looks an inch beyond his nose into th’ thing. It makes a man ashamed to be a kentry-man to see th’ foolish way these here blockheads git caught, ev’ry time.”
The women had been listening intently to this monologue. They looked at one another now, with the light of a strange new suspicion in their eyes.
“Who is this man? Who are you talking about?” Seth asked eagerly.
At that moment the sound of a stove being shaken vigorously came from the living-room. The Sheriff rose to his feet, and strode toward the door of this room.
“I’ll shaow him to yeh in th’ jerk of a lamb’s tail,” he said.
The conversation in the living-room, after Milton entered, had been trivial for a time, then all at once very interesting. He had been disagreeably surprised at finding three men with John, but had taken a seat, his big hands hanging awkwardly over his knees, and had been reassured somewhat by the explanation that Mr. Hubbard, the dead man’s partner, was anxious to hear all he could about the sad occurrence. The District Attorney he did not know by sight, and he did not recognize Ansdell, who stood looking out of the window, softly drumming on the panes.
Milton told a lot of details, about Albert’s return, about hitching up the grays for him, about how the news was received at the Convention and the like, all recited with verbose indirectness, and at great length. Once he stopped, his attention being directed to a slight sound in the parlor, and looked inquiry. John promptly explained that it was the undertaker, and the hired man went on.
At last the District Attorney, who had hitherto been silent, asked quietly:
“You went back to the stable—to your own room—after Mr. Fairchild drove away?”
“Yes, ’n’ went to bed.”
“Did you hear any one enter the stables afterward?”
“No, nary a soul.”
“There is a black mare in the stables, used under the saddle. Was she taken out that night?”
“Not thet I knaow of. Why?”
“Well, there seems to be a pretty positive story that she was. She was seen on the road, in fact, late that night, coming from the ravine. The rider was not recognized, but the mare was. How do you account for that?”
“Tain’t none o’ my business to ’caount for it.” Milton did not like the tendency of the conversation.
“No, I know that, but we are interested in finding out. I don’t think you know me—I am the District Attorney—and I shall take particular pains to find out.”
A gulf suddenly yawned before Milton’s feet, and he made a prompt, bold attempt to leap it. “I didn’t like to say nothin’ ’baout it, bein’ as it’s in th’ fam’ly”—he cast an uneasy glance at John here—“but Seth Fairchild rides th’ mare a good deal. I did hear somebody saddlin’ th’ mare, but I took it fer granted it was him, ’n’ sao I didn’t git up. It’d be jes like him, I said to myself, to go ridin’ in th’ moonshine. He’s thet sort of a feller, naow ain’t he, John?”
The sound of his own voice frightened Milton as he went on, and his closing appeal to the brother for corroboration carried the nervous accent of fear. John did not answer, but rose and walked over to join Ansdell at the window.
“Of caourse,” Milton began, in a lower voice, to which he sought to give a confidential tone, “I don’t wan’ to say nothin’ agin Seth. Of caourse, he’s John’s brother, ‘n’——”
The words were cut short by the rolling back of one of the parlor doors, and the entrance of the three doctors. The Coroner, who came last, pulled the door shut again. The older of the other two came to the District Attorney and said, with deliberate distinctness:
“We are both prepared to swear that Mr. Fairchild’s death was caused by a gunshot wound in the head.”
It was then that John sprang to the stove, and shook its grate vehemently.
At sight of the Sheriff, who advanced upon him with a directness which left no ambiguity as to his purpose, Milton rose excitedly from his chair, cast a swift scared glance around the company, and then, while the handcuffs were being snapped upon his wrists, began to whimper.
“I didn’t do it! It’s a put-up job! It’s them brothers o’ his thet allus hankered after his money, ’n’ naow they got it they’re tryin’ to put the thing on me. ’N’ his wife, tew, thet stuck-up city gal, she——”
“Come naow, yeou better shut up,” said the Sheriff sententiously. “Th’ more yeh say th’ wuss it’ll be fer yeh.”
Most of the men present averted their gaze during the brief period of alternate threats and cringing, of rough curses and frenzied fawning on the Sheriff, the District Attorney, and even the Coroner, which ensued; but Mr. Hubbard watched it all carefully with evident interest.
“That is a very curious type of criminal,” he said, as the Sheriff and his prisoner left the room; “very curious indeed! I never saw a murderer before who had so little nerve, and funked so absolutely when he was confronted with detection. Why, I’ve seen men, guilty as guilty could be, who would deceive even their own lawyers. But such a simpleton as that—he’s not worth his rope.”
“That is because you are a city man,” explained the District Attorney. “You don’t know the kind of murderers we raise here in the country. The chances are that your city assassin would be tortured by remorse, if he escaped discovery, and that he committed the deed in a moment of passion. But the rural murderer (I am speaking of native Americans, now) plans the thing in cold blood, and goes at it systematically, with nerves like steel. He generally even mutilates the body, or does some other horrible thing, which it makes everybody’s blood boil to think of. And so long as he isn’t found out, he never dreams of remorse. He has no more moral perspective than a woodchuck. But when detection does come, it knocks him all in a heap. He blubbers, and tries to lay it on somebody else, and altogether acts like a cur—just as this fellow ’s doing now, for instance.”
A hubbub of shrieks and sobs rose from the kitchen as he finished this sentence, and they with one accord moved toward the door.
The Sheriff, with an eye to his promise to the two men in the kitchen, had led the livid and slinking wretch out to the centre of the room, where the dim candles had now been lighted, and, forcing him to hold up his hands so that the manacles might be fully visible, said to Seth:
“Here yeh air! I said I’d shaow him to yeh! Here is the whelp thet did th’ mischief. Look at him!”
There was a second of dead silence, as the several listeners took in the significance of his words, and of the spectacle.
The silence was broken by an inarticulate, indescribable cry from Aunt Sabrina. Then came with startling swiftness a confusion of moving bodies, of screams, and the rattling of the handcuffs’ chain, which no one could follow. When the intervention of the Sheriff and Beekman had restored quiet, it was discovered that the old lady, with an agility of which none could have supposed her capable, had snatched a potato knife from the table, and made a savage attempt to wreak the family’s vengeance upon Milton. She had not succeeded in inflicting any injury, save a slight cut on one of his pinioned hands, and Seth now with some difficulty persuaded her to leave the room.
It fell to Alvira’s lot to bind up the bleeding hand—for Melissa, undertaking the task, was too nervous and trembling to perform it.
A little dialogue, in hushed whispers, which only imperfectly reached even the sentinel Sheriff, ensued:
“Sao this is what yeh’ve come tew!”
“It’s all a lie!”
“Oh, don’t tell me! Ef you’d be’n contented with yer lot in life, ’n’ hadn’t tried to swell yerself up like a toad in a puddle, this wouldn’t a happen’d. But nao, yeh poor fewl, yeh must set yerself up to be somebody! ’N’ naow where air yeh?”
Words with which to answer rose to Milton’s bloodless lips, but he could not give them utterance. He could not even look at her, but in a dazed way stared at the hand, which he held so that she could wind the bandage in spite of the gyves.
“I didn’t use to think yeh was aout-’n-aout bad,” she continued, more slowly; “they was a time when yeh might a made a decent man o’ yerself—ef yeh’d kep’ yer word to me.”
This time he did not make an effort to answer.
The task of sustaining the talk alone was too great for her. The tears came into her eyes, and blinded the last touches to the bandage. As it was completed, the Sheriff put his hand roughly on the prisoner’s shoulder. The meaning of this movement spread over her mind, and appalled her. With a gesture of decision she stood on tiptoe, lifted her face up to Milton’s, and kissed him. Then, as he was led away, she turned to the onlookers, and said defiantly, between incipient sobs:
“I daon’t keer! Ef t’ was th’ last thing I ever done in my life, I’d dew it. We was—engaged—once’t on a time!”
Do you clip over and tell Annie,” John had said to Seth, when the first excitement of the scene had passed off, and they stood at the kitchen window, watching the Sheriff’s buggy fade off in the dusk down the hill toward Thessaly jail. “It’s the thing for you to do—the quicker the better!”
Annie had been home from her day’s task some minutes, and sat by her grandmother’s bedside. The patient was in a semi-comatose state, breathing with unnatural heaviness, and Samantha had been dispatched with all haste to bring a doctor from Thessaly. It seemed terribly probable that Mrs. Warren’s last day had come.
Yet as she sat by the curtained recess, holding in her’s the withered hand which lay inanimate on the high edge of the bed, Annie still thought very little of the great change impending over her home; she had faced this death in life so long that its climax did not startle her, or wear the garb of strangeness. Instead, she was pondering the unaccountable, unwelcome fact with which Samantha had greeted her on her return—that Isabel was in the adjoining room, and had asked to see her.
What could it mean? What could Isabel’s purpose be in coming? And ought she to sacrifice her own feelings to the dictates of politeness, and go in to see this wicked, cruel woman? Perhaps she had come to retract and apologize for the fearful words of Tuesday. Perhaps her intention was to reiterate them, or worse, to recount that now the whole world would know of them—and gloat over her pain. No, that could scarcely be, for since her interview with Milton Annie felt satisfied at least of Seth’s innocence. But still something new might have been disclosed—Isabel might have evil tidings of some sort with which to overwhelm her afresh. What should she do?
The parlor door was ajar, and though she could not see her visitor, she could plainly hear the snapping of the wood fire within, which Samantha had kindled. Isabel must be perfectly aware of her return, and of her presence in this sick chamber. Every minute that she hesitated would only augment the widow’s anger at being thus inhospitably neglected. Even if she had relented, and had come with kindly intent, this reception might alter her impulses.
She rose to enter the parlor, but still stood irresolute, holding her grandmother’s hand, when there came the sound of footsteps in the front hall—then of a hasty knock on the door opening from the hall into this room in which she was. She opened the door, and before her, excited and jubilant, stood her cousin Seth.
“I’ve come to tell you!” he burst out, “It’s all cleared up. There was a murder. Milton did it! He’s just been arrested! I tried to ring your bell, but it didn’t seem to work. So I had to come in! And now——”
He opened his arms with an unmistakable gesture, and they closed fondly upon an overjoyed maiden, who sobbed upon his breast for very relief.
When she found breath and words, it was to say:
“Oh, you can’t guess what I have suffered these last two days; I thought I should never live through them! And now it seems as if I should go wild with joy—as if I couldn’t keep my feet down on the floor!”
“Yes, yes, I know, my darling. But we shall be all the happier for this spell of wretchedness. Dry your eyes, pet. There shall be no more thought or talk of tears—much less of dying.”
“O Seth!—I forgot!—my grandmother!”
She lowered her voice, and told him her fears.
Hand in hand, and with his arm about her shoulder, they moved softly to the bedside of the dying woman. The noise of the talking, or some less apparent influence, had aroused her from her lethargy. Her pale eyes were brilliant still, with an unearthly light, it seemed to the awed young man, and she rested their gaze fixedly upon the couple.
“Who is that?” she asked in a querulous whisper.
“It is Seth, Granny,” the girl answered, relapsing unconsciously into the familiar form she had not used since childhood.
The aged woman restlessly moved her head, and her eyes snapped with impatience at her inability to raise herself from the pillow.
“I won’t have him here! Tell him to take his arm away. What’s he doin’ here, anyway? He desarted yeh! His own father told me so! Tell him to go away! I hate the sight of the hull breed!”
“But he’s come back to me, Granny,” the girl pleaded, while Seth shrank backward in the shadow of the curtain. “Truly he has, and he’s not to blame. And I love him very dearly”—a pressure from the young man’s hand answered the sweetness of this avowal—“and he will be all I shall have left when—when—” she stopped, unwilling to conclude her thought in words.
“An’ will he take yeh away, an’ do by yeh ez a husban’ ought to do, or will he take yeh onto that Fairchild farm, an’ break yer heart out ez his father did his mother’s, an’ ez his uncle did yer mother’s, an’ ez his brother, so they tell me, is doin’ with his wife?”
“Oh, mercy!” the girl exclaimed, involuntarily; then she whispered to Seth, back of the curtains: “What shall I do! I forgot all about it—Isabel is there in the parlor and she has heard every word we’ve said.”
The quick ears of the invalid caught the whispered explanation. .
“Isabel!” she said, sharply. “That’s Albert Fairchild’s wife ain’t it?”
“Yes!” the girl answered. She tried in dumb show to convey to Seth that her grandmother was ignorant of his brother’s death.
“Go an’ fetch her in here,” said Mrs. Warren, with more animation in her voice than it had shown before. “I want to see her—to talk with her.”
“But, Granny, you ought’nt to see strangers; you know, the doctor——”
“I guess she ain’t much more of a stranger than this young man you’ve got here. Go an’ fetch her, I say! I won’t hurt her, an’ she won’t hurt me.”
There was nothing for Annie to do, but go into the parlor, and bow shamefacedly to Isabel, and say, with embarrassment in every syllable: “Excuse me for not coming before, but I think my grandmother is dying. She wants very much to see you. Won’t you come, please?”
Isabel had risen to her feet upon Annie’s entrance. To the latter’s surprise and increased confusion she held forth her hand with a friendly gesture. “Yes, I will come with you,” she said, as Annie doubtingly took the proffered hand, and the two women entered the sick-room.
Isabel did not seem to see Seth, who stood at the head of the bed, among the drawn curtains, but walked to the bedside and said softly: “I am Isabel, Mrs. Warren; I am sorry that our first meeting should find you so low.”
“So you’re Albert’s wife, eh?” The old woman eyed her keenly, for what seemed a long time. “I’ve heered tell o’ you. Would you mind gettin’ that candle there, on the mantle-piece, an’ holdin’ it, so’t I kin see yer face?”
Isabel gravely complied with the request, and stood before the invalid again, with the yellow light glowing upon her throat and lower chin and nostrils and full, Madonna-like brows. Her face was at its best with this illumination from below. She would have been a rare beauty close before the footlights.
“Well,” said Mrs. Warren, after a long inspection, “P’raps it’ll sound ridiculous to yeh, but yeh don’t look unlike what I did when I was your age. The farm ain’t had time to tell on yeh yit. But it will! It made me the skeercrow that you see; it’ll do the same for you. When I was a girl, I was a Thayer, the best fam’ly in Norton, Massachusetts. We held our heads high, I kin tell yeh. Why, when I brought my side-saddle here, stitched with silk, ’twas the fust one they’d ever seen in these parts. But I married beneath me, an’ I come up here into York State to live, on this very farm. With us, farmin’ don’t mean a livin’ death. P’raps we don’t hev sech fine big barns ez yeh build here, but our houses are better. We don’t git such good crops, but we pay more heed to education and godly livin’. It’s th’ diff’rence ’twixt folks who b’lieve there’s somethin’ else in life b’sides eatin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ makin’ money, an’ folks that don’t. Well, I left a good home, an’ I come here, an’ here I am. Look at me! Look at Lemuel Fairchild’s wife, Cicely—she was a relation of yours, wasn’t she?—see how the farm made an ole woman o’ her, an’ broke her down, an’ killed her! You’re young, an’ you’re good lookin’ yit, but it’ll break yeh, sure’s yer born. Husban’s on these farms ain’t what they air in the cities, nor even in the country in New England. I’m told your husban’ don’t treat you right.”
“Don’t let us talk about that—please!” said Isabel: she stole a swift, momentary glance toward Seth as she spoke.
The keen eyes in the recess followed this look. “Well, no,” the husky, whispering voice went on, “p’raps it ain’t none o’ my business. But tell me about this young man here—yer husband’s brother. I want to know about him.”
“What about him?” asked Isabel slowly, after a pause.
“Why, is he a likely man? Air his habits good? Could he take this girl o’ mine—an’ she’s a good girl, Annie is—could he take her to Tecumsy, an’ make a fit home fer her? An’ would he do it? Would he make her a good husban’—ez good ez she desarves? I ask you, ’cause you know him. I leave it to you—would you yerself marry him ef yeh was free, an’ feel safe about him? Come, now, tell me that!”
Isabel hesitated so long that the old woman, seemingly wandering a little after her long, laborious concentration of thought, broke in again:
“Oh, I know ’em! I know ’em! Of all the Fair-childses, there never was one decent one. They stole my daughter, an’ let her die ’mongst strangers, an’ they made a broken ole woman o’ me, an’ they slaved Cicely’s life out o’ her, an’ now they want my Annie——”
“No,” said Isabel here, speaking softly, and putting her hand on the wasted arm which lay above the coverlet. “I think you wrong Seth. Whatever the rest may have done, I think he will be a good husband to Annie. I am sure he will.”
No answer, save a low, incoherent murmuring, came from the recess. The invalid had lapsed into the lethargy of exhausted nature. As the trio stood by the bedside even this sound ceased. Nothing was to be heard but the labored, unnatural breathing.
Isabel placed the candle again upon the shelf. She had not removed her bonnet and wrap, and she turned now irresolutely toward the door.
Annie went to her, and silently took her hand. “I forgive you,” she whispered. “Was there anything else? Did you want to speak to me?”
“I don’t know what I wanted when I came. Let me go now. Perhaps if I said any more, I should hate myself afterward.”
And thus, without a glance at Seth, she went.