The Affair Next Door (24 page)

"Was she gone?" burst in Lena.

"O no, but there was such a smudge in it, and—and I could cry when I
think of it—there in the grate were the remains of her beautiful silk
blouse, all smoking and ruined. She had tried to burn it, and she had
succeeded too. I could not get a piece out as big as my hand."

"But you got some of it!" blurted out Lena, guided by a look which I
gave her.

"Yes, scraps, it was so handsome. I think I have a bit in my work-basket
now."

"O get it for me," urged Lena. "I want it to remember her by."

"My work-basket is here." And going to a sort of
etagère
covered with
a thousand knick-knacks picked up at bargain counters, she opened a
little cupboard and brought out a basket, from which she presently
pulled a small square of silk. It was, as she said, of the richest
weaving, and was, as I had not the least doubt, a portion of the dress
worn by Mrs. Van Burnam from Haddam.

"Yes, it was hers," said Lena, reading the expression of my face, and
putting the scrap away very carefully in her pocket.

"Well, I would have given her five dollars for that blouse," murmured
Mrs. Desberger, regretfully. "But girls like her are so improvident."

"And did she leave that day?" I asked, seeing that it was hard for this
woman to tear her thoughts away from this coveted article.

"Yes, ma'am. It was late, and I had but little hopes of her getting the
situation she was after. But she promised to come back if she didn't;
and as she did not come back I decided that she was more successful than
I had anticipated."

"And don't you know where she went? Didn't she confide in you at all?"

"No; but as there were but three advertisements for a lady-companion in
the
Herald
that day, it will be easy to find her. Would you like to
see those advertisements? I saved them out of curiosity."

I assented, as you may believe, and she brought us the clippings at
once. Two of them I read without emotion, but the third almost took my
breath away. It was an advertisement for a lady-companion accustomed to
the typewriter and of some taste in dressmaking, and the address given
was that of Miss Althorpe.

If this woman, steeped in misery and darkened by crime, should be there!

As I shall not mention Mrs. Desberger again for some time, I will here
say that at the first opportunity which presented itself I sent Lena to
the shops with orders to buy and have sent to Mrs. Desberger the ugliest
and most flaunting of silk blouses that could be found on Sixth Avenue;
and as Lena's dimples were more than usually pronounced on her return, I
have no doubt she chose one to suit the taste and warm the body of the
estimable woman, whose kindly nature had made such a favorable
impression upon me.

From Mrs. Desberger's I rode immediately to Miss Althorpe's, for the
purpose of satisfying myself at once as to the presence there of the
unhappy fugitive I was tracing.

Six o'clock Sunday night is not a favorable hour for calling at a young
lady's house, especially when that lady has a lover who is in the habit
of taking tea with the family. But I was in a mood to transgress all
rules and even to forget the rights of lovers. Besides, much is forgiven
a woman of my stamp, especially by a person of the good sense and
amiability of Miss Althorpe.

That I was not mistaken in my calculations was evident from the greeting
I received. Miss Althorpe came forward as graciously and with as little
surprise in her manner as any one could expect under the circumstances,
and for a moment I was so touched by her beauty and the unaffected charm
of her manners that I forgot my errand and only thought of the pleasure
of meeting a lady who fairly comes up to the standard one has secretly
set for one's self. Of course she is much younger than I—some say she
is only twenty-three; but a lady is a lady at any age, and Ella
Althorpe might be a model for a much older woman than myself.

The room in which we were seated was a large one, and though I could
hear Mr. Stone's voice in the adjoining apartment, I did not fear to
broach the subject I had come to discuss.

"You may think this intrusion an odd one," I began, "but I believe you
advertised a few days ago for a young lady-companion. Have you been
suited, Miss Althorpe?"

"O yes; I have a young person with me whom I like very much."

"Ah, you are supplied! Is she any one you know?"

"No, she is a stranger, and what is more, she brought no recommendations
with her. But her appearance is so attractive and her desire for the
place was so great, that I consented to try her. And she is very
satisfactory, poor girl! very satisfactory indeed!"

Ah, here was an opportunity for questions. Without showing too much
eagerness and yet with a proper show of interest, I smilingly remarked:

"No one can be called poor long who remains under your roof, Miss
Althorpe. But perhaps she has lost friends; so many nice girls are
thrown upon their own resources by the death of relatives?"

"She does not wear mourning; but she is in some great trouble for all
that. But this cannot interest you, Miss Butterworth; have you some
protégé
whom you wished to recommend for the position?"

I heard her, but did not answer at once. In fact, I was thinking how to
proceed. Should I take her into my confidence, or should I continue in
the ambiguous manner in which I had begun. Seeing her smile, I became
conscious of the awkward silence.

"Pardon me," said I, resuming my best manner, "but there is something I
want to say which may strike you as peculiar."

"O no," said she.

"I
am
interested in the girl you have befriended, and for very
different reasons from those you suppose. I fear—I have great reason to
fear—that she is not just the person you would like to harbor under
your roof."

"Indeed! Why, what do you know about her? Anything bad, Miss
Butterworth?"

I shook my head, and prayed her first to tell me how the girl looked and
under what circumstances she came to her; for I was desirous of making
no mistake concerning her identity with the person of whom I was in
search.

"She is a sweet-looking girl," was the answer I received; "not
beautiful, but interesting in expression and manner. She has brown
hair,"—I shuddered,—"brown eyes, and a mouth that would be lovely if
it ever smiled. In fact, she is very attractive and so lady-like that I
have desired to make a companion of her. But while attentive to all her
duties, and manifestly grateful to me for the home I have given her, she
shows so little desire for company or conversation that I have desisted
for the last day or so from urging her to speak at all. But you asked me
under what circumstances she came to me?"

"Yes, on what day, and at what time of day? Was she dressed well, or did
her clothes look shabby?"

"She came on the very day I advertised; the eighteenth—yes, it was the
eighteenth of this month; and she was dressed, so far as I noticed, very
neatly. Indeed, her clothes appeared to be new. They needed to have
been, for she brought nothing with her save what was contained in a
small hand-bag."

"Also new?" I suggested.

"Very likely; I did not observe."

"O Miss Althorpe!" I exclaimed, this time with considerable vehemence,
"I fear, or rather I hope, she is the woman I want."

"
You
want!"

"Yes,
I
; but I cannot tell you for what just yet. I must be sure, for
I would not subject an innocent person to suspicion any more than you
would."

"Suspicion! She is not honest, then? That would worry me, Miss
Butterworth, for the house is full now, as you know, of wedding
presents, and—But I cannot believe such a thing of
her
. It is some
other fault she has, less despicable and degrading."

"I do not say she has any faults; I only said I feared. What name does
she go by?"

"Oliver; Ruth Oliver."

Again I thought of the O. R. on the clothes at the laundry.

"I wish I could see her," I ventured. "I would give anything for a peep
at her face unobserved."

"I don't know how I can manage
that
; she is very shy, and never shows
herself in the front of the house. She even dines in her own room,
having begged for that privilege till after I was married and the
household settled on a new basis. But you can go to her room with me. If
she is all right, she can have no objection to a visitor; and if she is
not
, it would be well for me to know it at once."

"Certainly," said I, and rose to follow her, turning over in my mind how
I should account to this young woman for my intrusion. I had just
arrived at what I considered a sensible conclusion, when Miss Althorpe,
leaning towards me, said with a whole-souled impetuosity for which I
could not but admire her:

"The girl is very nervous, she looks and acts like a person who has had
some frightful shock. Don't alarm her, Miss Butterworth, and don't
accuse her of anything wrong too suddenly. Perhaps she is innocent, and
perhaps if she is not innocent, she has been driven into evil by very
great temptations. I am sorry for her, whether she is simply unhappy or
deeply remorseful. For I never saw a sweeter face, or eyes with such
boundless depths of misery in them."

Just what Mrs. Desberger had said! Strange, but I began to feel a
certain sort of sympathy for the wretched being I was hunting down.

"I will be careful," said I. "I merely want to satisfy myself that she
is the same girl I heard of last from a Mrs. Desberger."

Miss Althorpe, who was now half-way up the rich staircase which makes
her house one of the most remarkable in the city, turned and gave me a
quick look over her shoulder.

"I don't know Mrs. Desberger," she remarked.

At which I smiled. Did she think Mrs. Desberger in society?

At the end of an upper passage-way we paused.

"This is the door," whispered Miss Althorpe. "Perhaps I had better go in
first and see if she is at all prepared for company."

I was glad to have her do so, for I felt as if I needed to prepare
myself for encountering this young girl, over whom, in my mind, hung
the dreadful suspicion of murder.

But the time between Miss Althorpe's knock and her entrance, short as it
was, was longer than that which elapsed between her going in and her
hasty reappearance.

"You can have your wish," said she. "She is lying on her bed asleep, and
you can see her without being observed. But," she entreated, with a
passionate grip of my arm, which proclaimed her warm nature, "doesn't it
seem a little like taking advantage of her?"

"Circumstances justify it in this case," I replied, admiring the
consideration of my hostess, but not thinking it worth while to emulate
it. And with very little ceremony I pushed open the door and entered the
room of the so-called Ruth Oliver.

The hush and quiet which met me, though nothing more than I had reason
to expect, gave me my first shock, and the young figure outstretched on
a bed of dainty whiteness, my second. Everything about me was so
peaceful, and the delicate blue and white of the room so expressive of
innocence and repose, that my feet instinctively moved more softly over
the polished floor and paused, when they did pause, before that dimly
shrouded bed, with something like hesitation in their usually emphatic
tread.

The face of that bed's occupant, which I could now plainly see, may have
had an influence in producing this effect. It was so rounded with
health, and yet so haggard with trouble. Not knowing whether Miss
Althorpe was behind me or not, but too intent upon the sleeping girl to
care, I bent over the half-averted features and studied them carefully.

They were indeed Madonna-like, something which I had not expected,
notwithstanding the assurances I had received to that effect, and while
distorted with suffering, amply accounted for the interest shown in her
by the good-hearted Mrs. Desberger and the cultured Miss Althorpe.

Resenting this beauty, which so poorly accommodated itself to the
character of the woman who possessed it, I leaned nearer, searching for
some defect in her loveliness, when I saw that the struggle and anguish
visible in her expression were due to some dream she was having.

Moved, even against my will, by the touching sight of her trembling
eyelids and working mouth, I was about to wake her when I was stopped by
the gentle touch of Miss Althorpe on my shoulder.

"Is she the girl you are looking for?"

I gave one quick glance around the room, and my eyes lighted on the
little blue pin-cushion on the satin-wood bureau.

"Did you put those pins there?" I asked, pointing to a dozen or more
black pins grouped in one corner.

"
I
did not, no; and I doubt if Crescenze did. Why?"

I drew a small black pin from my belt where I had securely fastened it,
and carrying it over to the cushion, compared it with those I saw. They
were identical.

"A small matter," I inwardly decided, "but it points in the right
direction"; then, in answer to Miss Althorpe, added aloud: "I fear she
is. At least I have seen no reason yet for doubting it. But I must make
sure. Will you allow me to wake her?"

"O it seems cruel! She is suffering enough already. See how she twists
and turns!"

"It will be a mercy, it seems to me, to rouse her from dreams so full of
pain and trouble."

"Perhaps, but I will leave you alone to do it. What will you say to her?
How account for your intrusion?"

"O I will find means, and they won't be too cruel either. You had better
stand back by the bureau and listen. I think I had rather not have the
responsibility of doing this thing alone."

Miss Althorpe, not understanding my hesitation, and only half
comprehending my errand, gave me a doubtful look but retreated to the
spot I had mentioned, and whether it was the rustle of her silk dress or
whether the dream of the girl we were watching had reached its climax, a
momentary stir took place in the outstretched form before me, and next
moment she was flinging up her hands with a cry.