The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack

by Anna Katharine Green

  Frank, who was nothing if not sympathetic, nodded quickly, but did not break into those open expressions of indignation which his friend had evidently anticipated. The truth was, he was too busy considering the affair, and asking himself what part Hermione had taken in it, and whether all its incongruities were not in some way due to her. He was so anxious to assure himself that this was not so, that he finally asked:

  “And was that the end? Did you never see any of them again?”

  “I did not wish to,” was the answer. “I had already thought of trying my fortunes in the West, and when this letter came, it determined me. In three weeks I had left Marston as I thought forever, but I was not successful in the West.”

  “And you will be here,” observed Frank.

  “I think so,” said Edgar, and became suddenly silent.

  Frank looked at him a long time and then said quietly:

  “I am glad you love her still.”

  Edgar, flushing, opened his lips, but the other would not listen to any denial.

  “If you had not loved her, you would not have come back to Marston, and if you did not love her still, you would not pluck roses from her wall at midnight.”

  “I was returning from a patient,” objected Edgar, shortly.

  “I know, but you stopped. You need not blush to own it, for, as I say, I think it a good thing that you have not forgotten Miss Cavanagh.” And not being willing to explain himself further, Frank rose and sauntered towards the door. “We have talked well into the night,” he remarked; “supposing we let up now, and continue our conversation tomorrow.”

  “I am willing to let up,” acquiesced Edgar, “but why continue tomorrow? Nothing can be gained by fruitless conjectures on this subject, while much peace of mind may be lost by them.”

  “Well, perhaps you are right,” quoth Frank.

  XIII

  FRESH DOUBTS.

  Frank was recalled to business the next day by the following letter from Flatbush:

  Dear Mr. Etheridge:

  It has been discovered this afternoon that Mr. Huckins has left town. When he went or where he has gone, no one seems to know. Indeed, it was supposed that he was still in the house, where he has been hiding ever since the investigations were over, but a neighbor, having occasion to go in there today, found the building empty, and all of Mr. Huckins’ belongings missing. I thought you would like to know of this disappearance.

  Yours truly,

  A. W. Seney.

  As this was an affair for the police, Frank immediately returned to New York; but it was not many days before he was back again in Marston, determined to see Miss Cavanagh once more, and learn if his suit was as really hopeless as it appeared. He brought a box of some beautiful orchids with him, and these he presented to Miss Emma as being the one most devoted to flowers.

  Hermione looked a little startled at his presence, but Mrs. Lovell, the dear old lady who was paying them a visit, smiled gently upon him, and he argued well from that smile, knowing that it was not without its meaning from one whose eyes were so bright with intelligence as her’s.

  The evening was cool for summer, and a fire had been lighted in the grate. By this fire they all sat and Frank, who was strangely happy, entertained the three recluses with merry talk which was not without a hidden meaning for one of the quiet listeners. When the old aunt rose and slipped away, the three drew nearer, and the conversation became more personal. At last—how was it done—Emma vanished also, and Frank, turning to utter some witty speech, found only Hermione’s eyes confronting him in the fire-glow. At once the words faltered on his tongue, and leaning forward he reached out his hand, for she was about to rise also.

  “Do not rob me of this one moment,” he prayed. “I have come back, you see, because I could not stay away. Say that it does not anger you; say that I may come now and then and see your face, even if I may not hope for all that my heart craves.”

  “Do I look angry?” she asked, with a sad smile.

  “No,” he whispered; “nor do you look glad.”

  “Glad,” she murmured, “glad”; and the bitterness in her tone revealed to him how strong were the passions that animated her. “I have no business with gladness, not even if my own fate changed. I have forfeited all joy, Mr. Etheridge; and that I thought you understood.”

  “You speak like one who has committed a crime,” he smiled; “nothing else should make you feel as you do.”

  She started and her eyes fell. Then they rose suddenly and looked squarely into his. “There are other crimes than those which are marked by blood,” said she. “Perhaps I am not altogether guiltless.”

  Frank shuddered; he had expected her to repel the charge which he had only made in the hopes of showing her into what a morbid condition she had fallen.

  “My hands are clean,” she went on, “but my soul is in shadow. Why did you make me speak of it? You are my friend and I want to keep your friendship, but you see why it must not grow into love; must not I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal.”

  “I do not see that,” he cried impetuously. “You do not make me see it. You hint and assert, but you tell me nothing. You should give me facts, Hermione, and then I could judge whether I should go or stay.”

  She flushed, and her face, which had been lifted to his, slowly sank.

  “You do not know what you ask of me,” she murmured.

  “I know that I have asked you to be my wife.”

  “And it was generous of you, very generous. Such generosity merits confidence, but—Let us talk of something else,” she cried. “I am not fit—not well enough, I mean, to speak of serious matters tonight. Tell me about your affairs. Tell me if you have found Harriet Smith.”

  “No,” he returned, greatly disappointed, for there had been something like yielding in her manner a moment before. “There is no Harriet Smith, and I do not even know that there is a Hiram Huckins, for he too has disappeared and cannot be found.”

  “Hiram Huckins?”

  “Yes, her brother and the brother of Mrs. Wakeham, whose will has made all this trouble. He is the heir who will inherit her property if Harriet Smith or her children cannot be found, and as the latter contingency is not likely to happen, it is odd that he should have run away without letting us know where he can be found.”

  “Is he a good man?”

  “Hardly. Indeed I consider him a rascal; but he has a good claim on the property, as I have already said, and that is what angers me. A hundred thousand dollars should not fall into the hands of one so mean and selfish as he is.”

  “Poetic justice is not always shown in this world. Perhaps if you found the true heirs, you would find them also lacking in much that was admirable.”

  “Possibly; but they would not be apt to be as bad as he is.”

  “Is he dishonest?”

  “I do not like to accuse him, but neither would I like to trust him with another man’s money.”

  “That is unfortunate,” said she. “And he will really have this money if you do not find any nearer heirs?”

  “Certainly; his name follows theirs in the will.”

  “It is a pity,” she observed, rising and moving towards the harp. “Do you want to hear a song that Emma composed when we were happier than we are now?”

  “Indeed I do,” was his eager reply. “Sing, I entreat you, sing; it will make me feel as if the gloom was lifting from between us.”

  But at this word, she came quickly back and sat down in her former place by the fire.

  “I do not know what came over me,” said she; “I never sing.” And she looked with a severe and sombre gaze into the flames before her.

  “Hermione, have you no right to joy, or even to give joy to others?”

  “Tell me more about the case that is interesting you. Supposing you found Harriet Smith or her children?”

  “I would show them the will and put them in the way of securing their fortune.”

  “I should like to see that will.”


  “Would you?”

  “Yes, it would interest me.”

  “You do not look very interested.”

  “Do I not? Yet I am, I assure you.”

  “Then you shall see it, or rather this newspaper copy of it which I happen to have in my pocket-book.”

  “What, that little slip?”

  “It is not very large.”

  “I thought a will was something ponderous.”

  “Sometimes it is, but this is short and very much to the point; it was drawn up in haste.”

  “Let me take it,” said she.

  She took it and carried it over to the lamp. Suddenly she turned about and her face was very white.

  “What odd provision is this,” she cried, “about the heir being required to live a year in the house where this woman died?”

  “Oh,” said he, “that is nothing; any one who inherits this money would not mind such a condition as that. Mrs. Wakeham wanted the house fitted up, you see. It had been her birthplace.”

  Hermione silently handed him back the slip. She looked so agitated that he was instantly struck by it.

  “Why are you affected by this?” he cried. “Hermione, Hermione, this is something to you!”

  She roused herself and looked calmly at him, shaking her head.

  “You are mistaken,” she declared. “It is nothing to me.”

  “To someone you know, then—to your sister?”

  “How could it be anything to her, if not to me?”

  “True; I beg your pardon; but you seem to feel a personal disappointment.”

  “You do not understand me very well,” said she, and turned towards the door in welcome of her sister, who just then came in. She was followed by Doris with a tray on which were heaped masses of black and white cherries in bountiful profusion.

  “From our own trees,” said Emma, as she handed him a plate.

  He made his acknowledgments, and leaned forward to take the cherries which Doris offered him.

  “Sir,” whispered that woman, as she pushed into view a little note which she held in her hand under the tray, “just read this, and I won’t disobey you again. It’s something you ought to know. For the young ladies’ sakes do read it, sir.”

  He was very angry, and cast her a displeased look, but he took the note. Hermione was at the other end of the room, and Emma was leaning over her aunt, so the action was not seen; but he felt guilty of a discourtesy for all that, and ate his cherries with a disturbed mind. Doris, on the contrary, looked triumphant, and passed from one to the other with a very cheerful smile.

  When Frank arrived home he read that note. It was from Doris herself, and ran thus:

  “Something has happened to the young ladies. They were to have had new dresses this month, and now they say they must make the old ones do. There is less too for dinner than there was, and if it were not for the fruit on our trees we would not have always enough to eat. But that is not the worst; Miss Emma says I shall have to leave them, as they cannot pay me any longer for my work. As if I would leave them, if I starved! Do, do find out what this means, for it is too much to believe that they are going to be poor with all the rest they have to endure.”

  Find out what it meant! He knew what it meant; they had sacrificed their case, and now they must go hungry, wear old clothes, and possibly do their own work. It made him heart-sick; it made him desperate; it made him wellnigh forget her look when she said: “Our friendship must not grow into love, must not, I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal.”

  He resolved to see Hermione the next morning, and, if possible, persuade her to listen to reason, and give up a resolve that endangered both her own and her sister’s future comfort.

  XIV

  IN THE NIGHT WATCHES

  Meantime in the old house Hermione sat watching Emma as she combed out her long hair before the tiny mirror in their bedroom. Her face, relieved now from all effort at self-control, betrayed a deep discouragement, which deepened its tragic lines and seemed to fill the room with gloom. Yet she said nothing till Emma had finished her task and looked around, then she exclaimed:

  “Another curse has fallen upon us; we might have been rich, but must remain poor. Do you think we can bear many more disappointments, Emma?”

  “I do not think that I can,” murmured Emma, with a pitiful smile. “But what do you mean by riches? Gaining our case would not have made us rich.”

  “No.”

  “Has—has Mr. Etheridge offered himself? Have you had a chance of that happiness, and refused it?”

  Hermione, who had been gazing almost sadly at her sister as she spoke the foregoing words, flushed, half angrily, half disdainfully, and answered with sufficient bitterness in her voice:

  “Could I accept any man’s devotion now! Could I accept even his if it were offered to me? Emma, your memory seems very short, or you have never realized the position in which I stand.”

  Emma, who had crimsoned as painfully as her sister at that one emphasized word, which suggested so much to both sisters, did not answer for a moment, but when she did her words came with startling distinctness.

  “You do me wrong; I not only have realized, to the core of my heart, your position and what it demands, but I have shared it, as you know, and never more than when the question came up as to whether we girls could marry with such a shadow hanging over us.”

  “Emma, what do you mean?” asked Hermione, rising and confronting her sister, with wide open, astonished eyes. For Emma’s appearance was startling, and might well thrill an observer who had never before seen her gentleness disturbed by a passion as great as she herself might feel.

  But Emma, at the first sight of this reflection of her own emotions in Hermione’s face, calmed her manner, and put a check upon her expression.

  “If you do not know,” said she, “I had rather not be the one to tell you. But never say again that I do not realize your position.”

  “Emma, Emma,” pursued Hermione, without a change of tone or any diminution in the agitation of her manner to show that she had heard these words, “have you had a lover and I not know it? Did you give up that when—” The elder sister choked; the younger smiled, but with an infinite sadness.

  “I should not have spoken of it,” said she; “I would not have done so, but that I hoped to influence you to look on this affair with different eyes. I—I believe you ought to embrace this new hope, Hermione. Do but tell him—”

  “Tell him! that would be a way to gain him surely.”

  “I do not think it would cause you to lose him; that is, if you could assure him that your heart is free to love him as such a man ought to be loved.”

  The question in these words made Hermione blush and turn away; but her emotion was nothing to that of the quieter sister, who, after she had made this suggestion, stood watching its effect with eyes in which the pain and despair of a year seemed at once to flash forth to light.

  “I honor him,” began Hermione, in a low, broken voice, “but you know it was not honor simply that I felt for—”

  “Do not speak his name,” flashed out Emma. “He—you—do not care for each other, or—or—you and I would never be talking as we are doing here tonight. I am sure you have forgotten him, Hermione, for all your hesitations and efforts to be faithful. I have seen it in your eyes for weeks, I have heard it in your voice when you have spoken to this new friend. Why then deceive yourself; why let a worn-out memory stand in the way of a new joy, a real joy, an unsullied and wholly promising happiness?”

  “Emma! Emma, what has come to you? You never talked to me like this before. Is it the memory of this folly only that stands in the way of what you so astonishingly advocate? Can a woman situated as I am, give herself up to any hope, any joy?”

  “Yes, for the situation will change when you yield yourself once again to the natural pleasures of life. I do not believe in the attitude you have taken, Hermione; I have never believed in it, yet I have cheerfully shared it becau
se, because—you know why; do not let us talk of those days.”

  “You do not know all my provocation,” quoth Hermione.

  “Perhaps not, but nothing can excuse the sacrifice you are making of your life. Consider, Hermione. Why should you? Have you not duties to the present, as well as to the past? Should you not think of the long years that may lie between this hour and a possible old age, years which might be filled with beneficence and love, but which now—”

  “Emma, Emma, what are you saying? Are you so tired of sharing my fate that you would try to make me traitor to my word, traitor to my love—”

  “Hush,” whispered again Emma, “you do not love him. Answer me, if you do. Plunge deep into your heart, and say if you feel as you did once; I want to hear the words from your lips, but be honest.”

  “Would it be any credit to me if I did not? Would you think more of me if I acknowledged the past was a mistake, and that I wrecked my life for a passion which a year’s absence could annul.”

  But the tender Emma was inexorable, and held her sister by the hands while she repeated.

  “Answer, answer! or I shall take your very refusal for a reply.”

  But Hermione only drooped her head, and finally drew away her hands.

  “You seem to prefer the cause of this new man,” she murmured ironically. “Perhaps you think he will make the better brother-in-law.”

  The flush on Emma’s cheek spread till it dyed her whole neck.

  “I think,” she observed gravely, “that Mr. Etheridge is the more devoted to you, Hermione. Dr. Sellick—” what did not that name cost her?—“has not even looked up at our windows when riding by the house.”

  Hermione’s eye flashed, and she bounded imperiously to her feet.

  “And that is why I think that he still remembers. And shall I forget?” she murmured more softly, “while he cherishes one thought of grief or chagrin over the past?”