do one thing at least i can—
love a man or hate a man
supremely.
pippa passes.
"louisa!"
"yes, miss dot?"
"has either of those two recognized you?"
"well, miss, mr. smith haven't, that's sure. i might be a sack of potatoes for all the notice he takes. men he'll look at, and i'd be sorry to be the one as tried to do him; but women—no. he's a real gentleman, he is. he've taken his ticket for up above, and he ain't goin' to waste it."
"and the other one?"
"mr. gardiner? i see him stare at me pretty hard times and again, but it's always, 'now, have i seen you before or haven't i?' so i just stares back as bold as a cucumber and puts him off. he can't be sure, see, about a old thing as is just like any other old thing. he've seen a many maids, miss."
"i never realized you were a danger till i'd got you here, and then it was too late. never mind, you'll come in useful. very useful. i didn't see how to begin, but i do now. i'm going to get it out of gardiner himself if i possibly can, that's only fair; but if i can't, i can always fall back on merion-smith. you see, if i can only get either of them to make any sort of admission, it's all i need, and that murderer's under my thumb. because merion-smith won't swear to a lie. not even to save a friend—lettice owned it this morning. at the inquest he escaped because nobody thought of asking him any questions, but once i get him into the[pg 74] witness-box again—oh! i must make gardiner speak—i will!"
"miss, if you 'op about so i can't do your hair, and i shall pull you crool."
"do i care?"
with a jerk and a tug, dorothea dragged her long tresses out of louisa's hands, and buried her face on the dressing-table. gaunt and patient, louisa waited behind her chair. her sympathies were divided; she found it hard to believe harm of a man, a mere bachelor man, who kept his house so scrupulously clean.
"it's a wicked thing you're after, miss, though i suppose it's no use me saying so," she remarked dispassionately.
"it is not wicked! it's justice. that's all i want: to make him answer to the law for what he's done. i wouldn't touch him with a pitchfork myself!"
"but look at the nasty underhanded way of it, miss! mascarooning as if you wasn't married, and you the way you been last year and all—it ain't hardly decent, to my mind. it makes me sick to see him hangin' on your footsteps, so to speak, and you leadin' him on. and it's my belief it's a wild mare's nest you got in your head, and him a babe unborn all the time; and then where'll you be?"
"where i was before, of course. if it's so i shall find it out, and no harm done."
"no harm, with him trustin' the very ground you tread on, and then coming all of a jolt on the truth—"
"oh, i can't go into all that," said dorothea impatiently. "i didn't ask him to admire me, did i? it was he began it. i never dreamed of such a thing. besides, i'm right, i know i am, and so would you if you'd been there. he did it. he's accountable for two lives, and one of them so innocent, so innocent—you know what guy did for me, what he saved me from; how do you think i could ever face him or my baby again if i let them go unavenged?"
"it's not in heaven you'll be meeting that dear little innocent, nor never seeing her no more—"
"oh, be quiet, louisa!" dorothea stamped; "put[pg 75] uncle jack's stars in my hair," she ordered. "and i'll not wear that old black thing to-night. i'll have the silver brocade."
"the brocade, miss? it ain't suitable, miss. a deal too dressy."
dorothea slewed round in her chair and looked up with an expression which sent louisa off to fetch the silver brocade without another word. persuasion was no good with dorothea. flat contradiction might sometimes avail; and the flatter it was, the more likely to hit the turning angle of that incalculable young person. but if it did not chance to hit that angle—well, there was nothing for it but prompt obedience.
dorothea, a world-weary cynic of twenty-one, not infrequently thought in terms of the penny novelettes which were her favorite reading. she had conceived the idea of arraying herself for conquest, after the fashion of the lady ermyntrude in the heart of a countess. every evening hitherto she had worn what the author of that interesting romance might have described as "a modest little black frock of some soft, clinging material." the brocade was full dress; it had a short-waisted bodice, with strands of silver crossing on the breast and a silver girdle. the petticoat, heavily embroidered, was short enough to show her silver shoes. over her shoulders, jasmine-white and dimpled, fell a scarf of silver gauze; and there were diamond stars in the darkness of her hair. in fine, when louisa had done with her, she was herself a star of loveliness bright enough to dazzle anybody.
lettice was waiting in the hall to see her cousin start, denis having as usual got ready half-an-hour too soon, with his rod and his rug and his bag and a basket for geraldine the kitten. they were exchanging those labored last words which even the best of friends manufacture while the carriage delayeth its coming, when this vision swept down on them, with her nose in the air. evidently dorothea had not forgiven lettice for cutting short her talk, or denis for suffering it to be done. she sailed on to the salon, where[pg 76] her entrance was greeted with a comically sudden hush, such as fell on the dinner-table when a new course made its appearance. lettice relieved her feelings with one of her favorite words; not "nice" this time, but "well!"
"there, you see you've lost me a commission, lettice!" said denis, laughing.
"me? i didn't do anything!"
"what's up?" asked gardiner. he had come out of his den, with a pot of flowers in his arms, just in time to witness the transit of venus, and had been favored, in contradistinction to the others, with a gracious smile; his face had changed, ever so little, in response. denis opened his lips to reply, but lettice was too quick for him.
"why, miss o'connor and i were having such a nice cozy talk together, and denis would come bothering with his old aeroplanes" (the tone of spite was delicious), "and of course she didn't like it, and now he's cross with me because she doesn't want to buy one! robs me of my only friend, and they says it's my fault, and abuses me like, like—like a pickpocket! well, well!"
nobody could play the injured innocent better than lettice, above all when she was in the wrong. she played with denis as delicately as a kitten plays with a leaf. "yes, you're an ill-used person, aren't you?" he said. he put his arm round her shoulders and gently pressed her down into a chair; he would never let her stand if he could help it. "at any rate, you're not in it, harry," he said, speaking over her head to gardiner. "she's not carried over our sins to you, that's one good thing!"
"yes, didn't i get a beamer?" said gardiner, with his easy laugh. he fell back to observe the flowers he had been arranging. "not that i should afflict myself if she did. so long as she pays her bill, it's all one to me!"
he fancied, as he spoke, that a gleam passed over miss smith's countenance; but at that moment the omnibus arrived, and amid good-bys and good wishes dorothea was forgotten. when the traveler had departed, and when gardiner had stood on the step waving his hand till the last[pg 77] minute, he turned, and came face to face with lettice. they looked at each other as the two intimate friends of a common friend do look, when the link (or should it be called a barrier?) is removed from between them. it might be said that this was the first time gardiner had ever seen lettice, for, remembering that gleam, he looked with curiosity. he found himself gazing into a pair of perfectly intelligent and faintly derisive hazel eyes.
when you have summed up a person as ordinary and inoffensive, it is a shock to discover that the said person has turned the tables by reading the inmost secrets of your heart. gardiner felt as though he had suddenly become transparent. fairly disconcerted, he wheeled round, and almost fell over the chambermaid, who was at his elbow offering him a note. "tiens!" said rosalie. the note dropped; the draught from the open door whisked it down the hall to lettice's feet. lettice, like her cousin, was a dandy in affairs of honor, and would not willingly have glanced even at the envelope of another person's letter; but in this case, as she stooped, she could not avoid seeing that the handwriting was dorothea's. she gave it back, and had the unique satisfaction of seeing gardiner color as he thanked her. then she slipped away, and left him to enjoy his letter alone.
"could you possibly give me just five minutes this evening, i have something very important i want to ask you. i will be up at the crucifix at half-past nine on the chance.—d. m. o'c."
above the gardens of the bellevue, which had a slope of one in six, there was an orchard of white-stockinged fruit trees, which had a slope of one in four. above that again rose the grassy hill-side, steeper and steeper, till after a veritable scramble you reached the top, which was marked by a cairn of stones and a crucifix. beyond the crucifix were level uplands—dry silvery grass, dark knots of furze or bramble, clayey ruts winding away to a wood of stunted firs which leaned, like the grasses, all along the wind. but[pg 78] on the other side of the cross, what a view! this hill was scarcely a mile as the crow flies from the cliffs of rochehaut, yet it faced a wholly different reach of the river, some ten miles distant, by water, from the ford where dorothea had cut her foot; the river performed a figure of eight in between. this was no scene of theatrical beauty, no famous pointe de vue, like that above frahan; yet gardiner loved it more. it gave him the free wind and the open sky, and it gave them to him alone; no one ever came up here, except perhaps a laborer trudging inland to rochehaut, the village of the middens. odi profanum vulgus. for gardiner, beautiful frahan was forever tainted by the thousands of admiring eyes which had rested upon it.
the hills here sank down in wide-spreading slopes, great shoulders and flanks all silvery and slippery with grass. at their feet the river rippled, shallow and broad; and on the green floor of the valley were clustered the houses of poupehan, a tiny gray hamlet with a tiny gray bridge which gathered the stream within its span, though above and below it spread out its rounded pools. on the farther bank, the hills rose like a wall, a sweep of dark woods. that white streak, could it be a road? yes, it was the bridle track going up to corbion on the height; it hung against the side-hill like a scarf. at the top you might see the gray extinguisher cap of corbion church, among trees. but the eye came back to rest on those glorious woods; how rich they were, deep-plumaged, somber, steep as a curtain!
by dint of neglecting his letters, and scamping his flowers, gardiner managed to keep tryst some minutes before the time appointed. he sat down on the stones and leaned against the crucifix, which shot up over his head, lank and black and forlornly crooked, a ten-foot spar supporting a ten-inch figure. the moon was coining liquid silver in a slate-blue sky; the faint gold lamps of poupehan showed vague in the gray depth of the valley. there by the river the mists were rising, the meadows drenched and cold and silvery with dew; here on the hill-top the air was velvet-warm and dry, and sweet with honeysuckle. big grasshoppers[pg 79] whirred all round in the grass, and a corncrake in the fir-wood behind let off at intervals his long mechanical rattle. there were owls, too, hoo-hooing, and one whose note was like a silvery bell, calling from the woods across the valley. it was a night of romance—a night for love.
gardiner's planets were mercury and venus; he incongruously combined the money-getting instinct with a sensuous temperament. he had intended to spend those minutes calmly in reviewing the pros and cons of marriage with dorothea—for there were a good many cons; marriage, even with a rich woman, did not come into his scheme of life. but the white enchantment of the moonlight was too much for him; he became a lover and nothing more.
meanwhile dorothea, climbing the hill, was beginning to wish she had not put on that silver brocade. if she was not careful, he would get out of hand; and if he got out of hand—she had come to rochehaut, in the first instance, bent on hunting down her enemy, but without any definite plan. true, the lady ermyntrude used her attractions for the undoing of the wicked lord henry; but it had never entered dorothea's head to do the like, probably because the idea was instinctively repugnant. it was very repugnant; and when chance, and the accident at the ford, showed her her power, though she used it, it was only after a struggle. not that she had any scruples of morality: dorothea was as unmoral a creature as one could find in a christian land, she was guided solely by her feelings. but, in spite of eight months of marriage, she was still fiercely virginal; she could not with equanimity suffer herself to be desired, above all by gardiner. still, being perfectly persuaded that she owed this duty to her dead, she was not going to turn back. dorothea had the merits of her defects; she was not a coward.
she arrived breathless, with her skirts tucked over her arm, and one glance told her that her na?ve plan for dazzling him had succeeded a little too well. his eyes caught sudden fire; he was on his feet in a moment, bowing to her with a dash of foreign extravagance.
[pg 80]
"barbarous behavior!" he said. "rank cruelty, no less. do you know you're three and a half minutes behind time?"
decidedly he was getting out of hand. dorothea retreated a pace or two, and wound her arm round the stem of the cross as if for support.
"i—i wanted to speak to you for a moment—"
"so you said; on business, wasn't it? i'm all attention. you don't look much like business to-night, do you know?"
"i can't say anything if you look at me like that!" cried dorothea in a rush. gardiner laughed and cast down his eyes. "no, please, if you'd turn right away—i shall never get it out to your face—"
"se?orita, if the moon doesn't desire to be looked at, she shouldn't appear in silver," said gardiner, complying. "that suit? now, what's the trouble?"
"it's a little difficult to explain." it was; her breath came fluttering and her voice shook. "you must be patient with me if i say it wrong." ("patient! i'll be something besides patient," gardiner murmured.) "it's—well, it's just this. have you—do you remember ever seeing my maid before?"
there was an instant change in the atmosphere.
"your maid? that gaunt female who looks like the nonconformist conscience? i might have. why?"
"she says she's seen you."
"where?"
"at your hotel at grasmere."
"at grasmere? at the easedale?"
dorothea nodded.
"go on," he prompted steadily.
"it was last august," said dorothea. "she was in the service of a mrs. trent—"
she stopped. she could feel the sudden increase of tension. "ah, i thought from your tone i'd been doing something reprehensible," said gardiner, with a dry laugh. "go on. i suppose she's told you a pretty yarn. i'm a murderer—is that it?"
"oh, no, no! it's only that she says the whole truth didn't[pg 81] come out at the inquest. she says you—you threw something at him—a chisel—mrs. trent picked it up afterwards—no, please wait a moment till i've done! louisa says too—i made her tell—that he, the man who died, had a temper, that he very likely said the most horrid things. i don't think even she thinks you were much to blame, while of course i—but she did think i ought to know; and i think so too. so i want you to tell me the very truth. did you do it?"
gardiner met her pleading glance, and a confession rose to his lips. then—whether he caught some shade of expression which was not wholly innocent: whether the truth was that at heart he really trusted no one save denis and his father—he temporized.
"why do you want to know?"
"i think so much of you!"
"how much do you think of me? enough to warrant my telling you a thing like that?—always supposing i'd done it, of course, which i don't admit."
"yes."
"it would be next door to murder, you know. a man wouldn't be safe to confess a murder except to his wife."
"oh!—well, tell me, then."
"you mean that?"
she nodded.
"sure?"
"yes, yes. tell me."
"ah!" said gardiner, with an exultant laugh, "when you're my wife, i will!"
he stepped forward and took her in his arms. dorothea struggled, and he thought little of it; but she got her arm free, doubled her fist, and hit out with such fury that he let her go, and fell back, his illusions tumbling about his ears. what a face she turned on him—all coarsened and distorted with passion!
"i hate you," she said.
"you loved me just now!"
"never, never. i never did. i wish you were in hell.[pg 82] oh! shall i ever feel clean again?" she was scrubbing away at her face as if she would have scraped off the skin. gardiner stared, stupefied. suddenly he gripped her arm.
"who are you?"
dorothea shook him off frantically; all her plans went overboard in one surge of fury.
"the wife of the man you murdered!"
