CHAPTER XXVIII. ALISON'S STORY
She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now andthen, when I, too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced at mefurtively. And once, in the middle of it, she stopped altogether.
"You don't realize it, probably," she protested, "but you look like a--awar god. Your face is horrible."
"I will turn my back, if it will help any," I said stormily, "but if youexpect me to look anything but murderous, why, you don't know what I amgoing through with. That's all."
The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. Theyhad met in Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken a villa fora year. Mrs. Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of society there,pleading the poverty of the south since the war as a reason for notgoing out more. There was talk of a brother, but Alison had not seenhim, and after a scandal which implicated Mrs. Curtis and a youngattache of the Austrian embassy, Alison had been forbidden to see thewoman.
"The women had never liked her, anyhow," she said. "She didunconventional things, and they are very conventional there. And theysaid she did not always pay her--her gambling debts. I didn't likethem. I thought they didn't like her because she was poor--and popular.Then--we came home, and I almost forgot her, but last spring, whenmother was not well--she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and italways uses her up--we went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met themthere, the brother, too, this time. His name was Sullivan, HarryPinckney Sullivan."
"I know. Go on."
"Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were verykind to me. I--I saw a lot of them. The brother rather attracted me,partly--partly because he did not make love to me. He even seemed toavoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, I suppose. Most of theother men I knew had--had--"
"I know that, too," I said bitterly, and moved away from her a trifle.I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I think she knewwhat I was suffering, for she showed no resentment.
"It was early and there were few people around--none that I cared about.And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I felt asthough the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when Mrs. Curtisarranged drives and picnics, I--I slipped away and went. I suppose youwon't believe me, but I had never done that kind of thing before, andI--well, I have paid up, I think."
"What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?" I demanded. I had got up andwas pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking savagely ata bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way.
"Very handsome--as large as you are, but fair, and even more erect."
I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was fairlysagging with jealous rage.
"When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had beengoing about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadfultime. I was dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do that toyou?"
"Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan," I said, with a cheerlessattempt at levity. "Go on."
"If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charmingletters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me tovisit her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could not gowhere I wished, and so--I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt's in thecountry, pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to Cresson. Yousee I warned you it would be an unpleasant story."
I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy ofthe last few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If Sullivan hadcome across the sands just then, I think I would have strangled him withmy hands, out of pure hate.
"Did you marry him?" I demanded. My voice sounded hoarse and strange inmy ears. "That's all I want to know. Did you marry him?"
"No."
I drew a long breath.
"You--cared about him?"
She hesitated.
"No," she said finally. "I did not care about him."
I sat down on the edge of the boat and mopped my hot face. I washeartily ashamed of myself, and mingled with my abasement was a greatrelief. If she had not married him, and had not cared for him, nothingelse was of any importance.
"I was sorry, of course, the moment the train had started, but I hadwired I was coming, and I could not go back, and then when I got there,the place was charming. There were no neighbors, but we fished and rodeand motored, and--it was moonlight, like this."
I put my hand over both of hers, clasped in her lap. "I know," Iacknowledged repentantly, "and--people do queer things when it ismoonlight. The moon has got me to-night, Alison. If I am a boor,remember that, won't you?"
Her fingers lay quiet under mine. "And so," she went on with a littlesigh, "I began to think perhaps I cared. But all the time I felt thatthere was something not quite right. Now and then Mrs. Curtis would sayor do something that gave me a queer start, as if she had dropped a maskfor a moment. And there was trouble with the servants; they were almostinsolent. I couldn't understand. I don't know when it dawned on me thatthe old Baron Cavalcanti had been right when he said they were not mykind of people. But I wanted to get away, wanted it desperately."
"Of course, they were not your kind," I cried. "The man was married! Thegirl Jennie, a housemaid, was a spy in Mrs. Sullivan's employ. If he hadpretended to marry you I would have killed him! Not only that, but theman he murdered, Harrington, was his wife's father. And I'll seehim hang by the neck yet if it takes every energy and every penny Ipossess."
I could have told her so much more gently, have broken the shockfor her; I have never been proud of that evening on the sand. I wasalternately a boor and a ruffian--like a hurt youngster who passes theblow that has hurt him on to his playmate, that both may bawl together.And now Alison sat, white and cold, without speech.
"Married!" she said finally, in a small voice. "Why, I don't think itis possible, is it? I--I was on my way to Baltimore to marry him myself,when the wreck came."
"But you said you didn't care for him!" I protested, my heavy masculinemind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, without theslightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She shook off my handand fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to find it, she acceptedthe one I thrust into her wet fingers.
Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordidstory of a motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a lostroad and a broken car, and a rainy night when they--she and Sullivan,tramped eternally and did not get home. And of Mrs. Curtis, when theygot home at dawn, suddenly grown conventional and deeply shocked. Ofher own proud, half-disdainful consent to make possible the hackneyedcompromising situation by marrying the rascal, and then--of hisdisappearance from the train. It was so terrible to her, such aHeaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against Sullivan, that Ilaughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the handkerchief.
"I know it's funny," she said, with a catch in her breath. "When I thinkthat I nearly married a murderer--and didn't--I cry for sheer joy." Thenshe buried her face and cried again.
"Please don't," I protested unsteadily. "I won't be responsible if youkeep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a capital chargehanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any moment."
That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. "I meant to be sohelpful," she said, "and I've thought of nothing but myself! There weresome things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was--what you say, then Iunderstand why she came to me just before I left. She had been packingmy things and she must have seen what condition I was in, for she cameover to me when I was getting my wraps on, to leave, and said, 'Don't doit, Miss West, I beg you won't do it; you'll be sorry ever after.' Andjust then Mrs. Curtis came in and Jennie slipped out."
"That was all?"
"No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave Har--Mr.Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it excited himterribly. He took his sister aside and they talked together. He waswhite with either fear or anger--I don't know which. Then, when
weboarded the train, a woman in black, with beautiful hair, who wasstanding on the car platform, touched him on the arm and then drew back.He looked at her and glanced away again, but she reeled as if he hadstruck her."
"Then what?" The situation was growing clearer.
"Mrs. Curtis and I had the drawing-room. I had a dreadful night, justsleeping a little now and then. I dreaded to see dawn come. It was to bemy wedding-day. When we found Harry had disappeared in the night, Mrs.Curtis was in a frenzy. Then--I saw his cigarette case in your hand. Ihad given it to him. You wore his clothes. The murder was discovered andyou were accused of it! What could I do? And then, afterward, when I sawhim asleep at the farmhouse, I--I was panic-stricken. I locked him inand ran. I didn't know why he did it, but--he had killed a man."
Some one was calling Alison through a megaphone, from the veranda. Itsounded like Sam. "All-ee," he called. "All-ee! I'm going to have someanchovies on toast! All-ee!" Neither of us heard.
"I wonder," I reflected, "if you would be willing to repeat a part ofthat story--just from the telegram on--to a couple of detectives, sayon Monday. If you would tell that, and--how the end of your necklace gotinto the sealskin bag--"
"My necklace!" she repeated. "But it isn't mine. I picked it up in thecar."
"All-ee!" Sam again. "I see you down there. I'm making a julep!"
Alison turned and called through her hands. "Coming in a moment, Sam,"she said, and rose. "It must be very late: Sam is home. We would bettergo back to the house."
"Don't," I begged her. "Anchovies and juleps and Sam will go on forever, and I have you such a little time. I suppose I am only one of adozen or so, but--you are the only girl in the world. You know I loveyou, don't you, dear?"
Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She pursedher red lips and answered him in kind. It was more than I could endure.
"Sam or no Sam," I said firmly, "I am going to kiss you!"
But Sam's voice came strident through the megaphone. "Be good, you two,"he bellowed, "I've got the binoculars!" And so, under fire, we walkedsedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing--the little swishof her dress beside me on the grass was pain and ecstasy. I had but toput out my hand to touch her, and I dared not.
Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail andwatched us with gleeful malignity.
"Home early, aren't you?" Alison called, when we reached the steps.
"Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted.Damn the heart convention!" he said cheerfully. "The others are not hereyet."
Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone again.The noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into the garden,still bright in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, and staringinterestedly into the billiard room, was Johnson.
The Man in Lower Ten Page 28
