Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  CHAPTER VIII

  There was a thin cry of life in the nursery of the Houston farm house.The mother slept and the new born was in competent hands. Mr. Houston, afarmer more prosperous and enterprising than his somewhat weedyappearance prefigured, beckoned Dr. Anna into the dining-room, where asleepy but interested "hired girl" had brought hot coffee andsandwiches.

  The battle had lasted little over three hours, but every moment had beenfraught with anxiety for the doctor and the husband. Mrs. Houston'sheart had revealed an unsuspected weakness and the baby had not onlyneglected to head itself towards the gates of life as all proper littlemarathons should, but had exhibited a state of suspended animation forat least twenty minutes after its arrival at the goal.

  Dr. Anna dropped into a chair beside the table and covered her face withher hand.

  "I'm all in, I guess," she murmured, and the farmer put down the coffeepot and ran for the demijohn.

  "You drink this," he said peremptorily. His own hand was shaking, but hemade no verbal attempt to release his strangled emotions until both heand the doctor had drunk of coffee as well as whiskey. Then, when halfway through a thick sandwich made of slabs of bread and beef, he beganto thank the doctor incoherently.

  "You are just it," he sputtered. "Just about it. And your poor backmust be broke. You doctors do beat me, particularly you women doctors.I'll never say nothin' against women doctors again, though I'll tell younow that although poor little Aggie was dead set on you, I opposed itfor awhile--"

  Dr. Anna was sitting up and smiling. She waved his apologies andprotestations aside. "I can't think what came over me to collapse likethat. Once or twice lately I have thought I might be getting something.I'll have my blood taken to-morrow. Now, I'll go home and get to bedquick, although that coffee has made me feel as fine as a fiddle."

  "Well, I needed it too, and for more reasons than you. Say--" Mr.Houston had risen and was pulling nervously at his short and boskybeard. "I got a 'phone from Mrs. Gifning a while ago. You're wanted atthe Balfames--bad."

  Dr. Anna sprang to her feet, her full cheeks pale again. "Enid! What hashappened to her?"

  "Oh, she's all right, I guess. It's Dave--"

  "Oh, another gastric attack?"

  "Worse and more of it. He was shot--two or three hours ago, I guess. Ididn't ask the time--was in too big a hurry to get back to Aggie--at hisown gate, though, I think she said."

  "Who did it?"

  "Nobody knows."

  "Dead?"

  "No one'll ever be deader."

  "H'm!" The color had come back to Dr. Anna's tired face and she shruggedher shoulders. "I'm no hypocrite, and I guess you're not either."

  "I'm no more a hypocrite than I am a Democrat. His yellow streak wasgettin' wider every year. It's good riddance. Still I wish he'd died inhis bed. I don't like the idea of a fellow citizen, good or bad, bein'shot down like that. It's against law and order, and if the murderer'scaught and I'm drawn on the jury, and it's proved he done it, I'll votefor conviction."

  "Quite right," said Dr. Anna briskly, as she went out into the hall andput on her hat. "I suppose it's Mrs. Balfame who wants me?"

  "Yes, that's it. I remember. But you ought to go home and get sleep.There's enough women to sit up with her. The hull town likely."

  "But I know she wants me." Dr. Anna's face glowed softly. "I'll sleepthere all right--on a sofa beside her bed--if she wants me to stay on."

  "Well, look out for yourself," he growled. "If you don't think aboutyourself a little more you'll soon have no show to think so much aboutother people. I'm goin' for the car."

  A few moments later he had brought the little runabout to the door,lighted the lamps, and given the doctor a hard grip of the hand.

  She returned the pressure in kind. "Now don't worry, Mr. Houston. She'sall right, and that nurse is first rate. Don't talk to her. Aggie, Imean. See you to-morrow about ten."

  She drove rapidly out of the gate and into the road. There was a fullmoon shining and the drive was but ten miles between the farm andElsinore. Her face was tired and grim. She had been in daily contactwith typhoid fever in the poor and dirty quarter of the town. In herarduous life she had often experienced healthy fatigue, but nothinglike this. Could she be coming down?

  She swung her thoughts to Enid Balfame, and forgot herself. Free atlast, and while still young and lovely! Would she marry Dwight Rush? Hehad leaped into her mind simultaneously with the announcement ofBalfame's death. But was he good enough for Enid? Was any man? Why, nowthat she was a real widow and in no need of a protector, should shemarry at all? At any rate she could afford to wait. There were greaterprizes to be captured by a beautiful and still girlish woman.

  She was glad for the first time that Enid had never had a child, forthere was a virgin and mystic appeal in the woman that had escaped thecommon lot. Spinsters lost it, curiously enough, but a chaste and lovelymatron, who had ignored the book of experience so liberally offered her,and with eyes as unalloyed as a girl's (save when flashing withintellectual fires)--what more distracting anomaly could the worldoffer? Only Mrs. Balfame's indifference had kept the men away--Dr. Annawas convinced of that. Her future was in her own hands.

  Dr. Anna's mind wandered to the scene of the murder. It was notdifficult to construct, even from the meager details, and she shuddered.Murder! What a hideous word it was! Horrid that it should even brush thename of an exquisite creature like Enid Balfame. Would that Dave Balfamecould have fallen of apoplexy while disgracing himself at the Club! ButAnna frowned and shook the picture out of her mind. Doctors are too longtrained in death to be haunted by its phantoms in any form.

  A sharp turn and the road ran beside a salt marsh, a solemn greyexpanse that lost itself far away in the grey of the sea. Suddenly Dr.Anna became aware of a man walking rapidly down the road toward her. Hecarried his hat in his hand as if his head were hot on this cool autumnnight. There was no fear of man in Dr. Anna, even on lonely countryroads; nevertheless she had no mind to be detained, and was about toincrease her speed, when her curiosity was excited by somethingpleasantly familiar in the tall loose figure, the almost stiffly uprighthead. A moment later and the bright moonlight revealed the white face ofDwight Rush.

  She brought the car to an abrupt halt as he too paused and noddedrecognition.

  "What's the matter?" she asked sharply. "You looked as if you werewalking to beat time itself--as if you saw a ghost to boot--"

  "Plenty of ghosts in my head. It aches like the dickens--"

  "Were you there when it happened?"

  "When what happened?"

  "What? You pretend you don't know--when all Elsinore must have known itwithin five minutes--"

  "I don't know what you are talking about. I followed you in from theClub and then took the train for Brooklyn, where I had to see a man.When I got back to Elsinore--off the train--my head ached so I knew Icouldn't sleep--so I started out to walk it off--been walking for abouttwo hours."

  "Dave Balfame was shot down at his own gate three or four hours ago."

  "Good God! Who did it? Is he dead?"

  "He's dead, and that's about all I can tell you. Houston went to the'phone but he was in such a state of mind about his wife that he didn'tstay for particulars. Enid wanted me--it was Lottie Gifning that'phoned. I gathered, however, that they haven't caught the murdereryet."

  "Jove!" Rush was shaking. "I feel as if I'd been hit in the pit of thestomach. And I'm not one to go to pieces, either. But I've a good enoughreason."

  Dr. Anna continued to stare at him. He met her gaze and wonder grew inhis. Then the blood rushed into his face and he threw back his head."What do you mean? That I did it?"

  "No--I don't see you committing murder--"

  "Not in that damned skulking way--"

  "Exactly. But you kind of suggest that you might know something aboutit. You might have been in the grove, or some other part of thegrounds--with some idea of protecting Enid--"

  "Why should you think that?"

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p; "She told me--I didn't think it a bad idea myself--that you asked her todivorce Dave and marry you. But she said she wouldn't and I guess shemeant it. Now, get in," she added briskly. "I'll drive you home andnever say I met you. Met anybody else?"

  "No one."

  "Unless they get the right man at once, everybody who was known to haveany reason to wish Dave Balfame out of the way will come undersuspicion. For all you know, somebody may have guessed your secret; Isaw it in your eyes at the clubhouse when you were trying to get Daveout of the room for her sake; but of course I was 'on.' Those New Yorknewspaper men, however--watch out for them. They'll fine-tooth-comb thecounty for the man in the case."

  Rush had disposed his long legs in the little machine and it was oncemore running swiftly on the smooth road. "My brain is still too hot totheorise," he said. "May I smoke? What is your opinion?"

  "He had many political enemies; besides, these last two years he's beengrowing more and more unbearable, so I guess he had more than one in hisown party. But it isn't unlikely that some girl did it. For some reasonthe trollops liked him, and I've met him several times of late drivingwith a red-headed minx that looks as if she could shoot on sight."

  "I don't mind telling you that I saw Mrs. Balfame a few minutes afteryou left her. I was boiling. Instead of piloting Balfame out to Sam'scar I wished that I had run him behind the clubhouse and horsewhippedhim. We are too civilised these days. I merely went to his house andasked his wife if she would divorce the brute and marry me. Twocenturies ago--maybe one--I'd have picked her up and flung her on myhorse and galloped off to the woods. We haven't improved; we've merelysubstituted the long-winded and indirect method and called itcivilisation."

  "Just so. Did she let you in?"

  "Not she. You might know that without asking. Nor was she any nearerdivorce than before. When I offered to pick a quarrel with him, shemerely slammed the door in my face. But I went to the window and madeher promise that if she were ever in trouble I should be the firstperson she would send for--"

  "But you weren't!" Dr. Anna's voice rang with jealous triumph. "I wasthe first. But never mind me. I've adored her for forty years, and youhaven't known her as many weeks. Tell me, you didn't conceal yourselfanywhere in the grounds to watch over her? She must have been all alone.Every servant in town takes Saturday night out."

  "I inferred that Sam would keep him at his house all night. Besides, Iknew she had a pistol. Balfame told me the day he bought her one in NewYork; when those burglaries began."

  "Well, don't tell any one that you offered to dispose of her husband--afew moments before he was killed! It might make unnecessary trouble fora rising young lawyer."

  "I am quite able to do my own thinking and take care of myself," he saidhaughtily, stung by her tone. "If you choose to think me guilty, do so.And let me tell you that if I had done it I shouldn't put my head in theash barrel."

  "No, but you might do your best to avoid the chair. Small blame to you.Well, as I said, you're safe as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't send adog to the chair. That is--" she looked at him threateningly, "if youreally do love Enid and want to marry her."

  "Love her? I'd marry her if she had done it herself and I'd caught herred-handed."

  "That's the real thing, I guess." She patted his hand approvingly. "I'lldo what I can to help you. She's not a bit in love with you yet, butthat's because she's the purest creature on earth and never would letherself even dream of a man she couldn't marry. She's one of the lastgrand representatives of the old Puritan stock--and when you see as muchmean and secret infidelity, dose as many morbid hysterical women, as Ido--Oh, Lord! No wonder I see Enid Balfame shining with cold radiance inthe high heavens. I may idealise her a bit, but I don't care. It wouldbe a sad old world if you couldn't exalt at least one human above themuck-ruck. Well, she likes you, and you have interested her. Just be onhand when she wants you, needs you. When this excitement is over and sheis tired of female gabble, she'll turn to you naturally, if you manageher properly and don't butt in too soon. Quiet persistence and tact;that's your game. I'll put in a good word."

  "By George, you are a good fellow!" He leaned over and kissed herimpulsively. As Dr. Anna felt the pressure of those warm firm lips onher faded cheek, she astonished herself and him by bursting into tears.In an instant, however, she dashed them away and gave an odd gurglinglaugh.

  "Don't mind a silly old maid--who loves Enid Balfame more than life, Iguess. And I'm a country doctor, Dwight, who's had a hard night bringingone more unfortunate female into the world. I feel better since Icried--first time since you boys used to tease me at school because Ihad cheeks like red pippins--you don't remember me over at school inyour village. Renselaerville. I lived there for a spell, and I rememberyou. But this isn't the time for reminiscences. Where do you live? We'llbe in the outskirts in three minutes."

  "I have rooms at The Brabant."

  "Any night clerk?"

  "No; it's an apartment house."

  "Good. We're somewhere in the small hours all right."

  She drove swiftly through the sleeping town, slowing down on the cornerof Main Street and Atlantic Avenue. Rush sprang out with a word ofthanks and walked up the avenue to The Brabant. The trees here wereneither old nor close, for this was the quarter of the wealthy newcomersand of the older residents that had prospered and rebuilt. But not asoul was abroad, and he let himself into the bachelor apartment houseand mounted the two flights to his rooms unseen.