Another Woman's House

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  “No.

  “Why not? There’s no reason …”

  “Because you are you, Richard. If you were not I couldn’t love you so much.”

  “ ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more?’ ” quoted Richard and laughed abruptly. And quite suddenly sobered and said flatly, “Well, all right then. This is to be all, is it, Myra? For all our lives? I can’t come to see you, you know.”

  “No.”

  “We can’t even meet in town, drive, have dinner together.”

  A sense of recklessness caught her with swift argument. It was not possible, it was not right, to give up everything life promised. She cried, “We’ll see each other. Sometimes …”

  His arms tightened again around her. Over his shoulder she could see the evening star which was very bright now; a segment of sky was blue. In the far distance the peepers made a high shrill music. The scent of the spring night and of the sea lay all around them. She thought, this moment is mine. I can be sure of this.

  Yet, it was farewell, too.

  Richard lifted his head and looked at her slowly in the soft dusk and kissed her. The bright evening star and the tranquil darkening sky, the sound of the peepers and the scent of the spring night all drifted together and there was only the man who held her as if he would never let her go.

  But he did let her go. And, as she stood there, holding to him, knowing that whatever he decided, whatever he said at that moment she would not have the will to resist, he said, “It’s no good, Myra. I suppose I knew it from the beginning. There’s not a chance for us. Where’s the dog? Oh, yes, come on, Willie.” He whistled and the little dog scrambled into sight. Richard said slowly, “If we can’t marry, we can’t see each other. You should have a rich and full life, everything. Not in any sense a half life, a surreptitious, shoddy kind of thing. It’s not good enough for you. I think …” he paused, studying the sandy path at his feet. Finally he went on, “I think if I asked you to, now, you’d undertake that kind of life. You’re so good, Myra, and so generous. I think you’d take the secret, hidden kind of thing that would enable us to meet—at little quiet restaurants, hoping nobody we know would see us, a drive together along the country roads, hoping we’d not meet somebody who knew my car, who might catch a glimpse of you. There’s Thorne—the man whose wife is in prison for life. Who’s the woman with him? Myra Lane!’ Everywhere we went, everything we did would be suddenly an evil sort of thing, distorted, not as we want it to be. You’re not a worldly person. I don’t think you realize what it would mean to both of us, but mainly to you. I’ve seen more of the world and of men and women than you have. You can’t have that sort of life. You’re too good for it. And I love you.”

  “Do you mean I’m never to see you again?”

  He said quietly, “Not like this. I ought not to have kept you down here so long. It’s cold and it’s late.” He slipped his hand under her arm again and turned her toward the house.

  “But Richard …”

  “You were right; I was wrong.”

  They reached the path through the trees. How could this be the end of love? The end of Richard. The end of Myra.

  Dried pine needles rustled under their feet along the path. A feathery branch touched her cheek like a ghostly hand. But everything was said. In that short time every argument had been advanced, every possible course explored.

  She had to leave. Well, she’d known that from the beginning.

  But suddenly, walking across the lawn now, with the lights of the house ahead of her, she thought: Richard loves me.

  Nothing could take that from her. It was like the promise of a rock to cling to in a storm, a fire to warm her heart. If she never saw him again in her life, never touched his hand in greeting, never listened for the sound of his footsteps, she’d have that, always.

  Richard had stopped. He caught her suddenly by the arm and pulled her around to face him. “Listen, Myra,” he said. “We’ve covered everything. We’ve argued against ourselves, we’ve talked and talked and none of it’s any good. I suppose we had to talk and argue it out—if only to see how wrong we were.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Dead wrong,” said Richard. He laughed with a swift exultance and cried, “None of it is valid against you and me! There’s just one thing that’s really important. I’m going to marry you.”

  He shook her a little, his face white against the night. “Do you understand? We’re going to marry.”

  His gaze was caught by something beyond her. He was staring up at the house. He cried, “All those lights! What the hell?” He broke off. He let her go and ran across the dark lawn. She followed. Willie scrambled after her. The house was ablaze with lights; they streamed out upon the terrace.

  They reached the steps, Richard ahead. He was still ahead when he came to the French doors into the library and flung one of them open.

  A woman was sitting in the ruby chair near the fire. She had tossed a fur coat on the table. She was smiling.

  Her golden hair shone in the light. The fire crackled softly. She put back her head and said in a clear, high voice, “Darling, I’ve come back. I’ll never leave you again.”

  It was, of course, Alice.

  CHAPTER 5

  IF RICHARD MOVED OR spoke Myra did not know it. She was vaguely aware of someone else in the room, too, a man who rose and came forward. She was vaguely aware of the fact, too, that he was speaking. She heard, or at least sensed, no words. Her whole consciousness was taken up with Alice. Alice’s presence in that room. Her small face, her wistful, tired smile. Her fragile beauty.

  She could not be there! It was unreal; it was a dream; it could not be true.

  It was true.

  There was the ruby-red chair in which Myra had sat so short a time ago. There were the papers and the mail Barton had placed on the table. The fire had been replenished and was burning brightly. She had an impulse to touch the table, touch something real and material—the fur coat that lay across the table was real, too; mink, in soft luxurious folds, tossed there by an accustomed hand. How had Alice had a mink coat in prison? Had it been stored somewhere? She had a sudden vision of Alice taking walks in a prison yard wrapped in mink. It was so sharply fantastic that it acted as a restorative. She roused from the first sense of incredulity. Alice had come home; Alice was sitting in the red chair that so set off her beauty; her fair head was dropping back wearily against it, her pansy brown eyes luminous and soft as if full of unshed tears. The man, the strange man in the room was talking. He was coming toward Richard, his hand out. Willie, pushing at her ankles, uttered a soft growl, and crept under a chair.

  Richard still had not moved. The strange man, big and jovial in appearance, except for his shrewd and rather cold eyes, was smiling but looked nervous. Myra began to take in words. “… am sorry I could not have prepared you for it, Thorne. But it seemed the more merciful way for us to come as secretly and quickly as we could. Mrs. Thorne has suffered too much already from public pillory. I did stop as we came through the village and tried to phone to you but the man who answered said you were out. So we came on.” Richard’s hand moved as if he had no awareness of it. The big man pumped it up and down.

  Alice’s voice was as high and sweet as a canary’s. She said, “He means I’m free, Richard. He brought me here himself.”

  Myra would not have said that she could have remembered Alice so accurately. It had been at least six years since she had seen her and then only briefly. But she did remember every curve of her fine, delicately featured face, her round white throat, her soft golden hair, drawn back now from her white low forehead to a large bun on the back of her neck. She wore somber black which set off the lovely curves of her figure against the red chair, and no lipstick. Her eyes looked enormous and there were shadows below them; her small soft white hands lay, palms up, helplessly along the arms of the chair; she was watching Richard.

  The big man said quickly, “Webb Manders confessed to perjury this morning
. His testimony against your wife was a lie and he has signed a confession to that effect. Consequently, legally, the basis for your wife’s conviction was fraudulent. Thank God it lay within my power as Governor to free her, quickly and quietly. I cannot right a great and tragic injustice that was done; but I have done everything within my power to correct it.” He stopped and looked at Alice and said rather gently, “Perhaps you’d better take her upstairs, Thorne. She has been through an exhausting experience.”

  “Yes,” said Alice. “Yes.”

  Richard seemed still unable to move. The Governor said, “Take her, Thorne. I’ll explain everything when you come down again. But first see to her. …”

  Alice rose then, unsteadily, her small hands clinging now to the chair. She said, “My own home. My husband …” and held out her hands appealingly, like a child, looking up at Richard.

  There was an instant of silence in the room.

  Then Richard moving like an automaton went toward her. His broad shoulders blocked out the view of Alice. The Governor cleared his throat. But Alice did not put her arms up around Richard. He did not bend toward her. Myra wished to look away and could not. Alice slid her arm through Richard’s and said in her high, sweet voice, unsteady now, as if near collapse, “Richard, I—I can’t believe it. It seems like a miracle …”

  The Governor cleared his throat again and said, “I don’t want to suggest—I suppose the family doctor—that is, she’s not ill, of course, but …”

  “No, no,” said Alice. “I’ll be all right. She moved and turned and Myra could see her now, leaning against Richard. Her small lovely face was very white. She said unsteadily, “I can’t thank you, Governor. I can’t tell you …”

  “No need,” said the Governor gruffly. “No need. Just take care of yourself, dear Mrs. Thorne. Get some roses back in those cheeks. Try to forget. And don’t worry about anything. We’ll do everything we can about the newspapers. We’ve kept them out of it so far. No tears now …”

  She smiled. Her gaze fell on the fur coat. She said, “Tell your wife that her kindness in sending her own coat for me to wear was almost more than I could bear.”

  “Now, now,” said the Governor warningly, smiling. “You’ve been very brave. No tears.”

  “I won’t cry,” said Alice. “I’m too happy.” Her soft brown eyes went slowly all around the room, touching every object caressingly. Her gaze reached Myra and fixed itself with a kind of start for an instant and then she said with an apologetic gasp, “Oh, Myra! I didn’t realize you were there—I only saw Richard.”

  The Governor said kindly, “You’d better not talk now; get her to rest, Thorne …”

  Alice said, “Oh, yes. Yes, I’ll rest. My own room again, no bars, no keys …” her voice choked. She turned toward the door leaning heavily upon Richard. There was another moment of silence in the room—it was so still that Myra could hear the light swish of Alice’s somber yet modish black gown as they walked together to the doorway. Richard did not look back. It was as if Richard were not there at all but a perfectly strange person who moved in Richard’s body. They disappeared and Myra’s hand was stiff and cramped from holding so tightly to the curtains beside her and the room seemed, in spite of the lights and the fire, extraordinarily chill and empty. Then the Governor cleared his throat again, got out his handkerchief, blew his nose loudly and looked at Myra.

  “That woman’s an angel. Very near collapse, I’m afraid, but too much courage to admit it. However, she’ll be all right now.” His eyes sharpened. “See here. Don’t you collapse! You’d better sit down.” He came quickly to Myra and led her to Richard’s arm chair and put her down in it, talking rapidly. “Good news can be almost as much of a shock as bad news. Lean back, Miss—er—lean back. Maybe you’d better have a drink. I could use one myself. Where’s the bell? I’m sorry it had to come as such a shock to everybody, but the way things were it seemed impossible to do otherwise if I was to spare you all further notoriety. Now then, Miss—er—” He was looking around vaguely for the bell.

  Myra said, “Lane. It’s there beside the door.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, I see.” He started toward it, stopped suddenly midway, shot her a sharp look and said, “Lane? Is your name Lane?”

  Myra’s voice seemed dragged up from some deep distance, flat and still, without tone or resonance. “Myra Lane.”

  “Lane,” said the Governor. “Well!” He turned, went quickly to the bell and pushed it and came back to stand before her, his back to the fire. “Are you,” he said, “any relation to Timothy Lane?”

  A faraway wonder touched her. What did he know of Tim?

  “He is my brother.”

  “Your brother!” began the Governor on a note of astonishment and stopped and stared. “Do you live here?”

  Again a voice not her own seemed to reply for Myra. “No—that is, yes, I do just now.” His shrewd sharp eyes questioned. She said, “I live with Aunt Cornelia, Lady Carmichael.”

  His face cleared. “Oh, yes, she was Cornelia Thorne. I do recall now that someone said she had come back from England to keep house for Dick Thorne.”

  His eyes were again bright and sharp with question. “I didn’t realize that your brother and you are related to the Thornes.”

  She had to speak; she had to reply; she had to explain.

  “Oh, we are not. We only call her Aunt. My mother was a friend of Lady Carmichael’s. She died when I was sixteen. I have lived with Lady Carmichael since then.”

  “I see. In England?”

  “Yes, until last fall when we came here.”

  “I see.” He paused thoughtfully and then said: “What ,about your brother? He went to school here, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. That is, until he was eighteen. He went directly from school into the army.” Why was he talking so much of Timothy? What of Alice’s release, her exoneration, her return?

  The Governor waited for a moment, with a rather curious look of mingled question and reflection in his face and, in the short silence, Barton came from the hall door. His face was flabby and white with shock, his eyes excited. “You rang, Miss Myra?”

  “No,” said the Governor. “I rang. I think we could do with a drink, if you please.” He looked at Myra. “I think I’d suggest a little brandy for Miss Lane. I’ll take a whisky and soda if you’ll be so good.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Barton. “Yes, sir.” His voice was breathless. He gave Myra an excited look, wavered indecisively in the doorway, said, “Yes, sir. I’ll bring it at once,” and went away. Willie, puzzled, his tail dejected, crawled out from somewhere and followed Barton soberly.

  “Shock to your butler, too,” said the Governor. “I thought he’d have a stroke when he opened the door and saw Mrs. Thorne.

  “So you’re Timothy Lane’s sister. Look here, then, you were not in America at the time”—he waved in a broad gesture around the room—“the time all this happened?”

  With an effort again, Myra replied. “No. We were still in England. Aunt Cornelia wished to come as soon as she knew; she’d had an accident and couldn’t.”

  “I see. I was sure that neither of you was here at the time of the trial. I was then the prosecuting attorney, you know. Well.” He was silent for a moment again, staring at the rug, rubbing his hands together absently.

  Alice free; Alice exonerated; Alice at home to stay. What were they saying upstairs, Richard and Alice?

  The Governor said suddenly, “I didn’t know that you were Tim Lane’s sister. I think you’d better know the whole story of Mrs. Thorne’s pardon.”

  Timothy again. This time the allusion was too pointed to avoid. She said abruptly, “What has Timothy to do with it?”

  “Everything,” said the Governor gravely. Richard came down the stairs and across the hall. The Governor said, “Well, Thorne. I’ve taken the liberty of asking your butler to bring me a drink.”

  Richard was dazed, too. Richard must have the same sense that she had of moving through a dream. He w
as very white, too; he gave her one swift glance that still did not seem to see her.

  He replied to the Governor, in the kind of voice, Myra thought again, she had heard in her own throat, flat and queer, without resonance or meaning.

  “That’s quite right, sir.” He looked around. “Where is it?”

  “He’s getting it now. I expect you want to know exactly how the thing happened. Did your wife tell you anything of it?”

  “She’s very tired. A maid is with her.” It was as if a stranger spoke, not Richard. He came to stand beside the Governor, his elbow on the mantel. Even his face seemed withdrawn and remote, without emotion or the capacity for emotion. The Governor said, “I’ll give it to you quickly, in a nutshell. Webb Manders, as I told you, has confessed to perjury. Consequently your wife’s conviction was due to fraud.”

  “Webb lied!”

  “Yes. Thus, in fact, she was, well, framed. She was wrongly and illegally imprisoned. He now admits that he did not see your wife shoot Jack Manders, and that he lied when he said that he did. He has signed a statement to that effect.”

  “Webb admits perjury!”

  “Right.”

  “But she’d never have gone to prison if it hadn’t been for his testimony.”

  “Exactly. The case against her, except for that, was merely and barely circumstantial. With his testimony those circumstances appeared corroborative; without his testimony the prosecution had no real case. I know,” said the Governor. “I was then the prosecuting attorney, as you’ll remember. Nobody knows the case better than I. She’d never have been convicted without the eye-witness testimony of Webb Manders. With it there was a case; without it …” He shrugged. “Since it was admitted perjury that sent your wife to prison it was my obvious duty on the facts of the case to pardon her, as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

  “When …” began Richard, but the Governor went on quickly, “She had suffered greatly from publicity. I was determined to avoid any more of that. Telephones, telegrams—somehow, too often, there is a leak. The important thing was to get her out and home, quickly and above all things quietly. I sent for the present district attorney who agreed with me. I wrote out her pardon. My wife, who was the only other person besides myself and the district attorney who knew what I had decided to do, sent a veil and a warm coat along with me in the car. I had my chauffeur take me to Auburn. The warden’s integrity and discretion are unquestionable. I told him the whole story. He went himself to bring her to his office. Together we managed to get her out of the place without another soul knowing it. I realized that this would be a shock to you, Thorne; but it would be, in any event, and it seemed to me I had no right to run the risk of photographers at the prison gate, headlines, ail that sort of thing.” He paused and eyed Richard thoughtfully. “I hope you think I took the right course.”