CHAPTER XXVIII
FIFTEEN MINUTES
"There have never been but one of us since I came into this house."
Monstrous assertion! or so it seemed to Ransom as the whirl of histhoughts settled and reason resumed its sway. Only one! But he hadhimself seen two; so had Mrs. Deo and the maids; he could even relate thedifferences between them on that first night. Yet had he ever seen themtogether, or even the shadow of one at the same moment he saw the personof the other? No, and with such an actress as she had shown herself to bethese last two days, such changes of appearance might be possible, thoughwhy she should engage in such a deep, almost incredible plot was amystery to make the hair rise,--she, the tender, exquisite, the belovedwoman of his dreams.
She saw the maddening nature of his confusion and, springing to him, fellon her knees with the imploring cry:
"Patience! Do not try to think--I will tell you. It can all be said in aword. I was bound to this brother of mine, to do his bidding, to followhis fortunes through life, and up to death, by promises and oaths towhich those uttered by me at the marriage altar were but toys and emptyair. Anitra, or the dream sister my misery took from the dead, was notso bound, so I strove to secure our joy by the seeming death of Georgianand a new life as her twin. You do not understand; you cannot. You haveno measure with which to gauge such men as my brother. But it will begiven you. There is no hope now. The weakness of a moment has undone us."
Ransom must have heard her, after events proved that he did, but he gaveno token of it. The visions that were whirling through his mind stillheld it engrossed. He saw her, not as she stood before him now, tremblingand appealing, but as she had looked to him in the hall that first night,as she had looked to him down by the mill-stream, as she had looked whenshe told her story as Anitra, and later when she had faced the landladyas Georgian, and the confusion of it all left no room in his consciencefor any other impression. But Mr. Harper, though surprised as he hadnever been before in all his professional career, lost himself in no suchabyss. With the freedom which long-delayed insight into the truth givesto a man of his positive nature and training, he left speculation and allendeavor to reconcile events with her declaration, and plunged at once tothe obvious question of the moment.
Fixing his keen gaze on Hazen, he observed very quietly, but with anunderlying note of sarcasm:
"If this lady is your sister, Georgian Ransom, and there is no Anitrasave the fast fading memory of the child commemorated in your family'smonument, then your statement as to the body you saw under the ledge wasfalse?"
The answer came deliberately, unaffected both by the manner of theaccusation or by the accusation itself.
"Perfectly so," said he, "I saw no body. Perhaps my description wouldhave been less vivid if I had. My intention you know. This woman haddeceived me to the point of making me believe that she was indeed Anitra,the twin, and not my millionaire sister, and Georgian's fortune beingnecessary to her heir, I wished to cut short the law's delay by anapparent identification. I never doubted from the moment this woman facedwith such well-played ignorance the mark of great meaning we had placedupon her door, that Georgian was in the river, as you all believed. Whythen not give her a positive resting-place, since this would smooth outall difficulties and hasten the very end for which she had apparentlysacrificed herself."
If there was any irony in his heart, his tongue did not show it. Indeedhis manner betrayed little. Immobility had again replaced all tokens ofanger, and immobility which only yielded now and then to a slightcontortion more expressive of physical pain than of mental agitation.Yet in Georgian's eyes he had lost none of his formidable qualities, forthe dismay with which she followed his words grew as she listened, andreached its height as he added in final explanation:
"The bag I did draw out of the pool, but only because I had taken it downthere in my blouse front. Did you think a man could see that or anythingelse indeed in that maddening swirl of water?"
"But it was Mrs. Ransom's bag," came from Harper in ill-disguisedamazement. Even his sang-froid was leaving him before these evidencesof a plot so deep as to awaken awe. "Where did you get it? Not from Mrs.Ransom herself? Her own surprise is warranty for that."
"No, I got it from the river, another reason why I credited her drowning.It was fished up from the sand, a little way from the Fall. My man foundit; I had sent him there in a vain hope that he might find evidence ofthe tragedy which others had overlooked. He did, but he told no one butme. You flung the thing too far," he remarked to Georgian. "You shouldhave dropped it nearer the bank. Only such a prodder as my man Ives wouldever have discovered it."
Georgian shook her head, impatient at such banalities, in the face of theimportant matters they had to discuss. "To the point," she cried, "tellthese men what will clear me of everything but a wild attempt atfreedom."
"I have said what I had to say," returned her brother.
Georgian's head fell. For a moment her courage seemed to fail her.
Mr. Harper rose and locked the door.
"We must have no intruders here," said he, pausing with a certain senseof shock, as he noticed the faint smile, full of some sinister meaning,which for an instant twisted Hazen's lips at these words.
But the delay was but momentary. With an odd sense of haste he rushed atonce to the attack.
Stepping in front of Hazen, he observed with force and unmistakableresolution:
"Your devotion to the legatee Auchincloss cannot possibly be explained byany ordinary feeling of obligation. Your sister has mentioned a Cause.Can he by any possibility be the treasurer of that Cause?"
But Hazen was as impervious to direct attack as he had been to a covertone.
"Georgian will tell you," said he. "When a woman looks as she looks now,and is so given over to her own personal longings that she forgets themost serious oaths, the most binding promises, nothing can hold back herspeech. She will talk, and since this must be, let her talk now and inmy presence. But let it be briefly," he admonished her, "and withdiscretion. An unnecessary word will weigh heavily in the end. You knowin what scales. You shall have just fifteen minutes."
He looked about for a clock, but seeing none drew out his watch from hisvest pocket and laid it on the table. Then he settled himself again inhis chair, with a look and gesture of imperative command towardsGeorgian.
Struck with dismay, she hesitated and he had time to add: "I shall notinterrupt unless you pass the bounds where narrative ends and disclosurebegins." And Harper and Ransom, glancing up at this, wondered at hisrigidity and the almost marble-like quiet into which his restless eye andfrenzied movements had now subsided.
Georgian seemed to wonder also, for she gave him a long and piercing lookbefore she spoke. But once she had begun her story, she forgot to lookanywhere but at the man whose forgiveness she sought and for therestoration of whose sympathy she was unconsciously pleading.
Her first words settled one point which up to this moment had disturbedRansom greatly.
"You must forget Anitra's story. It was suggested by facts in my ownlife, but it was not true of me or mine in any of its particulars.Nor must you remember what the world knows, or what my relations sayabout my life. The open facts tell little of my real history, whichfrom childhood to the day I believed my brother dead was indissolublybound up in his. Though our fathers were not the same and he hasold-world blood in his veins, while I am of full American stock, we lovedeach other as dearly and shared each other's life as intimately as if thebond between us had been one in blood as it was in taste and habit. Thiswas when we were both young. Later, a change came. Some old papers of hisfather fell into his hands. A new vision of life,--sympathies quiteremote from those which had hitherto engrossed him, led him further andfurther into strange ways and among strange companions. Ignorant of whatit all meant, but more alive than ever to his influence, I blindlyfollowed him, receiving his friends as my friends and subscribing to suchof their convictions as they thought wise to express before me. Anotheryear and
he and I were living a life apart, owning no individualexistence but devoting brain, heart, all we had and all we were, to theadvancement and perpetuation of an idea. I have called this idea theCause. Let that name suffice. I can give you no other."
Pausing, she waited for some look of comprehension from the man shesought to enlighten. But he was yet too dazed to respond to her muteappeal, and she was forced to continue without it. Indicating Hazen witha gesture, she said, with her eyes still fixed on those of her husband:
"You see him now as he came from under the harrow; but in those days--Imust speak of you as you were, Alfred--he was a man to draw all eyes andwin all hearts. Men loved him, women adored him. Little as he cared forour sex, he had but to speak, for the coldest breast to heave, the mostindifferent eye to beam. I felt his power as strong as the rest, onlydifferently. No woman was more his slave than I, but it was a sister'sdevotion I felt, a devotion capable of being supplanted by another. But Idid not know this. I thought him my whole world and let him engross me inhis plans and share his passions for subjects I did not even seek tounderstand.
"I was only seventeen, he twenty-five. It was for him to think, not me.And he did think but to my eternal undoing. The Cause needed a woman'shelp, a woman's enthusiasm. Without considering my motherless condition,my helplessness, the immaturity of my mind, he drew me day by day intothe secret meshes of his great scheme, a scheme which, as I failed tounderstand till it had absorbed me, meant the unequivocal devotion of mywhole life to the exclusion of every other hope or purpose. Favored, hecalled it, favored to stand for liberty, the advancement of men, theright of every human being to an untrammeled existence. And favored Ithought myself, till one awful day when my brother, coming suddenly intomy room, found me making plans for an innocent pleasure and told me suchthings were no longer for me, that a great and immortal duty awaited me,one that had come sooner than he expected, but which my youth, beauty,and spirit eminently fitted me to carry on to triumph.
"I was frightened. For the first time in my memory of him he looked likehis Italian father, the man we had all tried to forget. Once whilerummaging amongst my mother's treasures I had come across a miniature ofSignor Toritti. He was a handsome man but there was something terrible inhis eye; something to make the ordinary heart stand still. Alfred'sburned with the same meaning at this moment, and as I noted his manner,which was elevated, almost godlike, I realized the difference in ourheredity and how natural to him were the sacrifices for which my mind andtemper were as naturally unprepared. With difficulty I asked him toexplain himself, and it was with terror that I listened when he did.He may have been made to ask, but I was not made to hear such words. Hesaw my inner rebellion and stopped in mid-harangue. He has never forgivenme the disappointment of that moment. I have never forgiven him formaking me sign away my independence, my holdings, and my life to a CauseI did not thoroughly understand."
"Your life?" echoed Ransom, roused to involuntary expression by thisword.
"Surely not your life," echoed the lawyer, with the slow credulity of thematter-of-fact man.
"I have said it," she murmured, her head falling on her breast. At whichtoken of weakness, Hazen stirred and took the words from her mouth.
"The organization," said he, "is a secret one and its code isself-sacrifice. To the band of noble men and women, of whose integrityand far-reaching purpose you can judge little from the whinings of alove-sick girl, life and all personal gratifications are as dust in thebalance against the preservation and advancement of universal happinessand the great Cause. I thought my sister, young as she was, sufficientlygreat-minded to comprehend this and sufficiently great-hearted to do thesociety's bidding with joy at the sacrifice. But I found her lacking,and--" He stopped and almost lost himself again, but roused and criedwith sudden fire, "Tell what I did, Georgian."
"You took my duty on yourself," she conceded, but coldly. "That wasbrotherly; that was noble, if you had not exacted a vow from me inreturn, destined to lay waste my whole life. Released from this one greatduty, I was to hold myself ready to fulfil all others. At the lift of ahand--a finger--I was to leave whatever held me and go after the one whobeckoned in the name of the Cause. No circumstances were to beconsidered; no other human duty or affection. If it were to enter upon afuller and more adventurous life, well and good; if it were to encounterdeath and the cessation of all earthly things, that was well too, and agood to be embraced with ardor. Obedience was all, and obedience at amere signal! I took the oath and then--"
"Yes, _then_--" emphasized Hazen in wavering but peremptory tones.
"He told me what had led to all this misery. That as yet this compact wasbetween us two, and us two only. That he had considered my youth, and inspeaking of me to the Chief had held back my name even while promisingmy assistance. That he should continue to consider it, by keeping my namein reserve till he had returned from his mission, and if that missionfailed, or succeeded too well, and he did not return, I might regardmyself as freed from the Cause, unless my enlarging nature led me toattach myself to it of my own free will. That said, he went, and for ayear I lived under the dread of his return and all the obligations thatreturn would entail. Then came tidings of his death, tidings for which hemay not have been responsible, but which he never contradicted, and Ithought myself free--free to enjoy life, and the fortune that had sounexpectedly come to me; free to love and, alas! free to marry. And thatis why," she pursued, in all the anguish of a dreadful retrospect, "Irecoiled in such horror and hung, a dead weight on your arm, when onturning from the altar where we had just pledged ourselves to mutual loveand mutual life, I saw among the faces before me the changed but stillrecognizable one of my brother, and beheld him make the fatal sign whichmeant, 'You are wanted. Come at once.'"
"Wretch!" issued from the frenzied lips of the half-maddened bridegroom,as his glance flashed on Hazen. "Had you no mercy? Have you no mercy now,that you should torture her young, credulous soul with these fancifulobligations; obligations which no human being has any right to imposeupon another, whatsoever the Cause, holy or unholy, he represents?"
"Mercy? It is the weakness of the easy soul. There is no ease here," hecried, touching his breast with no gentle hand.
"Then you forget my money," suggested Georgian. "Can you expect mercyfrom a man who sees a million just within his grasp? I know," sheacknowledged, as Hazen lifted that same ungentle hand in haughty protest,"that it was not for himself. I do not think Alfred would disturb a flyfor his own comfort, but he would wreck a woman's hopes, a good man'shappiness for the Cause. He admitted as much to me, _and more_, in theinterview we held that afternoon at the St. Denis. I had to go to him atonce, and I had to employ subterfuge in order to do so," she went on inrapid explanation, as she saw her husband's eye refill with doubt under aremembrance of the shame and anguish of that unhappy afternoon. "I hadnot the courage to leave you openly at the carriage door. Besides, Ihoped to work on Alfred's pity in our interview together, or, if notthat, to buy my release and return to you a free woman. But the woundwhich had changed his face for me had changed and made hard his heart. Hehad other purposes for me than quiet living with a man who could have noreal interest in the Cause. The money I inherited, the rare and growingbeauty which he declared me to have, were too valuable to the brethrenfor me to hope for any existence in which their interests were notparamount. I might return to you, subject to the same authoritative beckand call which had put me in my present position, or I might leave you atonce and forever. No half measures were possible. Was I, a bride, lovingand beloved by my husband, to listen to either of these alternatives? Irebelled, and then the thunderbolt fell.
"I was no longer on probation, no longer subject to his will alone. I wasa fully affiliated member. That day my name had been sent to the Chief.This meant obedience on my part or a vengeance I felt it impossible toconsider. While I lived I need never hope again for freedom withoutpenalty.
"'While I lived'; the words rang in my ears. I did not need to weighthem; I knew that they w
ere words of truth. There is no power on earthso inescapable as that exercised by a secret society, and this one hasa terrible safeguard. None but he who keeps the list knows the members.You, Roger, might be one, and I never suspect it, unless you chose togive me the sign. Knowing this, I realized that my life was not worth thepurchase if I sought to cross the will of my own brother. Nor yours,either. It was the last thought which held me. While I dutifullylistened, my mind was working out the deception which was to release me,and when I left him it was to take the first step in the complicated plotby which I hoped to recover my lost happiness. And I nearly succeeded.You have seen what I have borne, what difficulties I have faced, whatdiscoveries eluded, but this last, this greatest ordeal, was too much. Icould not listen unmoved to a description of my own drowned body. I, whohad calculated on all, had not calculated on this. The horror overcameme--I forgot--perhaps because God was weary of my many deceptions!"
The Chief Legatee Page 29
