The Affair Next Door (26 page)

The dress was a simple gray one, and the skirts and underclothing all
white. But the latter was of the finest texture, and convinced me,
before I had given them more than a glance, that they were the property
of Howard Van Burnam's wife. For, besides the exquisite quality of the
material, there were to be seen, on the edges of the bands and sleeves,
the marks of stitches and clinging threads of lace, where the trimming
had been torn off, and in one article especially, there were tucks such
as you see come from the hands of French needlewomen only.

This, taken with what had gone before, was proof enough to satisfy me
that I was on the right track, and after Crescenze had come and gone
with the tray and all was quiet in this remote part of the house, I
ventured to open a closet door at the foot of the bed. A brown silk
skirt was hanging within, and in the pocket of that skirt I found a
purse so gay and costly that all doubt vanished as to its being the
property of Howard's luxurious wife.

There were several bills in this purse, amounting to about fifteen
dollars in money, but no change and no memoranda, which latter seemed a
pity. Restoring the purse to its place and the skirt to its peg, I came
softly back to the bedside and examined my patient still more carefully
than I had done before. She was asleep and breathing heavily, but even
with this disadvantage her face had its own attraction, an attraction
which evidently had more or less influenced men, and which, for the
reason perhaps that I have something masculine in my nature, I
discovered to be more or less influencing me, notwithstanding my hatred
of an intriguing character.

However, it was not her beauty I came to study, but her hair, her
complexion, and her hands. The former was brown, the brown of that same
lock I remembered to have seen in the jury's hands at the inquest; and
her skin, where fever had not flushed it, was white and smooth. So were
her hands, and yet they were not a lady's hands. That I noticed when I
first saw her. The marks of the rings she no longer wore, were not
enough to blind me to the fact that her fingers lacked the distinctive
shape and nicety of Miss Althorpe's, say, or even of the Misses Van
Burnam; and though I do not object to this, for I like strong-looking,
capable hands myself, they served to help me understand the face, which
otherwise would have looked too spiritual for a woman of the peevish and
self-satisfied character of Louise Van Burnam. On this innocent and
appealing expression she had traded in her short and none too happy
career. And as I noted it, I recalled a sentence in Miss Ferguson's
testimony, in which she alluded to Mrs. Van Burnam's confidential remark
to her husband upon the power she exercised over people when she raised
her eyes in entreaty towards them. "Am I not pretty," she had said,
"when I am in distress and looking up in this way?" It was the
suggestion of a scheming woman, but from what I had seen and was seeing
of the woman before me, I could imagine the picture she would thus make,
and I do not think she overrated its effects.

Withdrawing from her side once more, I made a tour of the room. Nothing
escaped my eyes; nothing was too small to engage my attention. But while
I failed to see anything calculated to shake my confidence in the
conclusions I had come to, I saw but little to confirm them. This was
not strange; for, apart from a few toilet articles and some
knitting-work on a shelf, she appeared to have no belongings; everything
else in sight being manifestly the property of Miss Althorpe. Even the
bureau drawers were empty, and her bag, found under a small table, had
not so much in it as a hair-pin, though I searched it inside and out for
her rings, which I was positive she had with her, even if she dared not
wear them.

When every spot was exhausted I sat down and began to brood over what
lay before this poor being, whose flight and the great efforts she made
at concealment proved only too conclusively the fatal part she had
played in the crime for which her husband had been arrested. I had
reached her arraignment before a magistrate, and was already imagining
her face with the appeal in it which such an occasion would call forth,
when there came a low knock at the door, and Miss Althorpe re-entered.

She had just said good-night to her lover, and her face recalled to me a
time when my own cheek was round and my eye was bright and—Well! what
is the use of dwelling on matters so long buried in oblivion! A
maiden-woman, as independent as myself, need not envy any girl the
doubtful blessing of a husband. I chose to be independent, and I am, and
what more is there to be said about it? Pardon the digression.

"Is Miss Oliver any better?" asked Miss Althorpe; "and have you
found—"

I put up my finger in warning. Of all things, it was most necessary that
the sick woman should not know my real reason for being there.

"She is asleep," I answered quietly, "and I
think
I have found out
what is the matter with her."

Miss Althorpe seemed to understand. She cast a look of solicitude
towards the bed and then turned towards me.

"I cannot rest," said she, "and will sit with you for a little while, if
you don't mind."

I felt the implied compliment keenly.

"You can do me no greater favor," I returned.

She drew up an easy-chair. "That is for you," she smiled, and sat down
in a little low rocker at my side.

But she did not talk. Her thoughts seemed to have recurred to some very
near and sweet memory, for she smiled softly to herself and looked so
deeply happy that I could not resist saying:

"These are delightful days for you, Miss Althorpe."

She sighed softly—how much a sigh can reveal!—and looked up at me
brightly. I think she was glad I spoke. Even such reserved natures as
hers have their moments of weakness, and she had no mother or sister to
appeal to.

"Yes," she replied, "I am very happy; happier than most girls are, I
think, just before marriage. It is such a revelation to me—this
devotion and admiration from one I love. I have had so little of it in
my life. My father—"

She stopped; I knew why she stopped. I gave her a look of encouragement.

"People have always been anxious for my happiness, and have warned me
against matrimony since I was old enough to know the difference between
poverty and wealth. Before I was out of short dresses I was warned
against fortune-seekers. It was not good advice; it has stood in the way
of my happiness all my life, made me distrustful and unnaturally
reserved. But now—ah, Miss Butterworth, Mr. Stone is so estimable a
man, so brilliant and so universally admired, that all my doubts of
manly worth and disinterestedness have disappeared as if by magic. I
trust him implicitly, and—Do I talk too freely? Do you object to such
confidences as these?"

"On the contrary," I answered. I liked Miss Althorpe so much and agreed
with her so thoroughly in her opinion of this man, that it was a real
pleasure to me to hear her speak so unreservedly.

"We are not a foolish couple," she went on, warming with the charm of
her topic till she looked beautiful in the half light thrown upon her by
the shaded lamp. "We are interested in people and things, and get half
our delight from the perfect congeniality of our natures. Mr. Stone has
given up his club and all his bachelor pursuits since he knew me,
and—"

O love, if at any time in my life I have despised thee, I did not
despise thee then! The look with which she finished this sentence would
have moved a cynic.

"Forgive me," she prayed. "It is the first time I have poured out my
heart to any one of my own sex. It must sound strange to you, but it
seemed natural while I was doing it, for you looked as if you could
understand."

This to me, to
me
, Amelia Butterworth, of whom men have said I had no
more sentiment than a wooden image. I looked my appreciation, and she,
blushing slightly, whispered in a delicious tone of mingled shyness and
pride:

"Only two weeks now, and I shall have some one to stand between me and
the world.
You
have never needed any one, Miss Butterworth, for you do
not fear the world, but it awes and troubles me, and my whole heart
glows with the thought that I shall be no longer alone in my sorrows or
my joys, my perplexities or my doubts. Am I to blame for anticipating
this with so much happiness?"

I sighed. It was a less eloquent sigh than hers, but it was a distinct
one and it had a distinct echo. Lifting my eyes, for I sat so as to face
the bed, I was startled to observe my patient leaning towards us from
her pillows, and staring upon us with eyes too hollow for tears but
filled with unfathomable grief and yearning.

She had heard this talk of love, she, the forsaken and crime-stained
one. I shuddered and laid my hand on Miss Althorpe's.

But I did not seek to stop the conversation, for as our looks met, the
sick woman fell back and lapsed, or seemed to lapse, into immediate
insensibility again.

"Is Miss Oliver worse?" inquired Miss Althorpe.

I rose and went to the bedside, renewed the bandages on my patient's
head, and forced a drop or two of medicine between her half-shut lips.

"No," I returned, "I think her fever is abating." And it was, though
the suffering on her face was yet heart-rendingly apparent.

"Is she asleep?"

"She seems to be."

Miss Althorpe made an effort.

"I am not going to talk any more about myself." Then as I came back and
sat down by her side, she quietly asked:

"What do you think of the Van Burnam murder?"

Dismayed at the introduction of this topic, I was about to put my hand
over her mouth, when I noticed that her words had made no evident
impression upon my patient, who lay quietly and with a more composed
expression than when I left her bedside. This assured me, as nothing
else could have done, that she was really asleep, or in that lethargic
state which closes the eyes and ears to what is going on.

"I think," said I, "that the young man Howard stands in a very
unfortunate position. Circumstances certainly do look very black against
him."

"It is dreadful, unprecedently dreadful. I do not know what to think of
it all. The Van Burnams have borne so good a name, and Franklin
especially is held in such high esteem. I don't think anything more
shocking has ever happened in this city, do you, Miss Butterworth? You
saw it all, and should know. Poor, poor Mrs. Van Burnam!"

"She is to be pitied!" I remarked, my eyes fixed on the immovable face
of my patient.

"When I heard that a young woman had been found dead in the Van Burnam
mansion," Miss Althorpe pursued with such evident interest in this new
theme that I did not care to interrupt her unless driven to it by some
token of consciousness on the part of my patient, "my thoughts flew
instinctively to Howard's wife. Though why, I cannot say, for I never
had any reason to expect so tragic a termination to their marriage
relations. And I cannot believe now that he killed her, can you, Miss
Butterworth? Howard has too much of the gentleman in him to do a brutal
thing, and there was brutality as well as adroitness in the perpetration
of this crime. Have you thought of that, Miss Butterworth?"

"Yes," I nodded, "I have looked at the crime on all sides."

"Mr. Stone," said she, "feels dreadfully over the part he was forced to
play at the inquest. But he had no choice, the police would have his
testimony."

"That was right," I declared.

"It has made us doubly anxious to have Howard free himself. But he does
not seem able to do so. If his wife had only known—"

Was there a quiver in the lids I was watching? I half raised my hand and
then I let it drop again, convinced that I had been mistaken. Miss
Althorpe at once continued:

"She was not a bad-hearted woman, only vain and frivolous. She had set
her heart on ruling in the great leather-merchant's house, and she did
not know how to bear her disappointment. I have sympathy for her myself.
When I saw her—"

Saw her! I started, upsetting a small work-basket at my side which for
once I did not stop to pick up.

"You have seen her!" I repeated, dropping my eyes from the patient to
fix them in my unbounded astonishment on Miss Althorpe's face.

"Yes, more than once. She was—if she were living I would not repeat
this—a nursery governess in a family where I once visited. That was
before her marriage; before she had met either Howard or Franklin Van
Burnam."

I was so overwhelmed, that for once I found difficulty in speaking. I
glanced from her to the white form in the shrouded bed, and back again
in ever-growing astonishment and dismay.

"You have seen her!" I at last reiterated in what I meant to be a
whisper, but which fell little short of being a cry, "and you took in
this girl?"

Her surprise at this burst was almost equal to mine.

"Yes, why not; what have they in common?"

I sank back, my house of cards was trembling to its foundations.

"Do they—do they not look alike?" I gasped. "I thought—I imagined—"

"Louise Van Burnam look like that girl! O no, they were very different
sort of women. What made you think there was any resemblance between
them?"

I did not answer her; the structure I had reared with such care and
circumspection had fallen about my ears and I lay gasping under the
ruins.

Had Mr. Gryce been present, I would have instantly triumphed over my
disappointment, bottled up my chagrin, and been the inscrutable Amelia
Butterworth before he could say, "Something has gone wrong with this
woman!" But Mr. Gryce was not present, and though I did not betray the
half I felt. I yet showed enough emotion for Miss Althorpe to remark: