LXI
Thus entreated, she no longer hesitated, though I noticed she stammered every time when obliged to speak the name of the woman who had shared with her—so much more than shared with her—Edgar’s affection.
“The flower-pot lay broken on the floor and I was surveying with the utmost surprise the key which I had picked up from the mold lying all about on the rug, when Lucy came in to say good night. When she saw what I held in my hand, she showed surprise also, but failed to make any remark,—which was like—Lucy.
“But I could not keep still. I had to talk if only to express my wonder and obtain a little sisterly advice. But she was in no hurry to give it, and not till I reminded her how lonely I was for all my host of so-called friends, and had convinced her by showing the chain, that this was the very key my father had worn about his neck and for which we had all been looking, did she show any real interest.
“‘And if it were?’ she asked. To which I answered eagerly, ‘Then, perhaps, we have in our hands the clew to where the will itself lies hidden.’ This roused her, for a spot of red came out on her cheek which had been an even white before; and glad to have received the least sign that she recognized the importance of my dilemma, I pressed her to tell me what I should do with this key now that I had found it.
“Even then she was slow to speak. She began one sentence, then broke it off and began another, ending up at last by entreating me to let her consider the subject before offering advice. You will acknowledge that it was a difficult problem for two ignorant girls like ourselves to solve, so I felt willing to wait; though I could not but wonder at her showing all at once so much emotion over what concerned me so much and herself so little—our cold Lucy always so proper, always so perfectly the mistress of herself whatever the occasion. Never had I seen her look as she was looking then nor observed in her before that slow moving of the eye till it met mine askance; nor heard her speak as she did when she finally asked:
“‘Who do you want to have it?’”
Orpha shot me a sudden glance as she repeated this question of Lucy’s, but did not wait for any comment, rather hastened to say:
“I am telling you just what she said and just how she looked because it means something to me now. Then it simply aroused my curiosity. Nor did I dream what was in her mind, when upon my protesting that it was not a question of what I wanted, but of what it was right for me to do, she responded by asking if I needed to be told that. The right thing, of course, for me to do was to call up the police and get from them the advice I needed.
“But, Quenton, I have a great dread of the police; they know too much and too little. So I shook my head, and seeing that Lucy was anxious to examine the key more closely, I put it in her hands and watched her as she ran her fingers over it remarking as she called my attention to it that she had never seen one quite so thin before—that she could almost bend it. Then in a quick low tone altogether unlike her own, added, as she handed it back that we had somebody’s fate in our hands, whose, she would not say. But this much was certain, mine was indissolubly linked with it. And when I shuddered at the way she spoke, she threw her arms about my neck and begged me to believe that she was sorry for me.
“This gave me courage to ask,”—and here Orpha’s lip took a sarcastic curve more expressive of self-disdain than of any scorn she may have felt for her confidant—“whether she thought Dr. Hunter would be willing to act as my advisor; that I did not like Mr. Dunn and never had, and now that my two cousins were away I could think of no one but him.
“But she rejected the idea at once—almost with anger, saying that it was a family matter and that he was not one of the family yet. That we must wait; come to no decision to-night, unless I was willing to try what we two could do with the key. Perhaps we might find the lock it fitted somewhere in my father’s room.
“But I refused, remembering that some member of the police is always in or near the grounds ready to remark any unusual lighting up of the third story windows. She did not seem sorry and, begging me to put the whole matter out of my mind till the next day, stood by while I dropped the chain and key into one of my bureau drawers, and then kissing me, went smilingly away.
“Quenton, I thought her manner strange,—at once too hurried and too affectionate to seem quite real—but I never thought of doubting her or of—of—Tell me if you know what I find it so difficult to say. Have the servants—”
“Yes, Orpha, I know through them what I have long known from other sources.” And waited with a chill at my heart to see how she took this acknowledgment.
Gratefully. Almost with a smile. She was so lovely that never was a man harder put to it to restrain his ardor than I was at that moment. But my purpose held. It had to; the time was not yet.
“I am glad,” fell softly from her lips; then she hurried on. “How could I doubt her or doubt him? We have been a thousand times together—all three, and never had I seen—or felt—Perhaps it is only he, not she. Listen, for I’m not through. Something happened in the night, or I dreamed it. I do not really know which. From what you say, I think it happened. I didn’t then, but I do now.”
“Go on; I am listening, Orpha.”
“I was very troubled. I slept, but only fitfully. My mind would be quite blank, then a sudden sharp realization would come of my being awake and seeing my room and the things in it with unusual distinctness. The moon would account for this, the curtains being drawn from one of the western windows, allowing a broad beam of unclouded light to pour into the room and lie in one large square on the floor. I once half rose to shut it out, but forgot myself and fell asleep again. When I woke the next time things were not so distinct, rather they were hazy as if seen through a veil. But I recognized what I saw; it was my own image I was staring at, standing with my hand held out, the key in my open palm with the chain falling away from it. Dazed, wondering if I were in a dream or in another world—it was all so strange and so unreal,—I was lost in the mystery of it till slowly the realization came that I was standing before my mirror, and that I was really holding in my hand the chain and key which I had taken from my bureau drawer. What is the matter, Quenton? Why did you start like that?”
“Never mind now. I will tell you some other time.”
She looked as if she hated to lose the present explanation; but, with a little smile charming in its naïveté, she went bravely on:
“As I took this quite in, I started to move away, afraid of my image, afraid of my own self, for I had never done anything like this before. And what seems very strange to me, I don’t remember the walk back to my bed; and yet I was in my bed when the next full consciousness came, and there was daylight in the room and everything appeared natural again and felt natural, with the one exception of my arm, which was sore, and when I came to look at it, it was bruised, as if it had been clutched strongly above the elbow. Yet I had no remembrance of falling or of hitting myself. I spoke to Lucy about it later, and about the image in the glass, too, which I took to be a dream because—”
“Because what, Orpha?”
“Because the chain and key were just where I had put them the night before,—the same chain and what I supposed to be the same key or I would never have said so when Lucy asked me about it.”
“Orpha, Miss Colfax has a streak of subtlety in her nature. I think you know that now, so there is no harm in my saying so. She was in the room when you laid by that key. She was watching you. It was she who helped you into your bed. She had a key of her own not unlike the one belonging to your father. She went for this and while you slept put it on the chain you may have dropped in crossing the floor or which she may have taken from your unresisting hand. And it was she who carefully restored it to the place it had occupied in the bureau drawer, ready to hand, in case the police should want it the next day. The other one—the real one, she mailed to Edgar. Did you ever hear her speak of a New York lawyer by the name of Miller?”
“Oh, yes; he is her aunt’s husband. It is to them she has gone. She is to be married in their house. They live in Newark.”
I own that I was a little startled by this information. In handing me the key and his letter two days before in Thirty-fifth Street he had taken me for Edgar. This he could not have done had he ever met him. Could it be that they were strangers? To settle the question, I ventured to remark:
“Edgar goes everywhere. Do you suppose he ever visited the Millers?”
“Oh, no. Lucy has not been there herself in years.”
“Then you do not think they are acquainted with him?”
“I have no reason to. They have never met Dr. Hunter. Why should they have met Edgar?”
Her cheek was aglow; she seemed to misunderstand my reason for these questions; so I hastened to explain myself by relating the episode which had had such an effect on all our lives. This once made clear I was preparing to consult with her about my plans for Edgar, when she cast a swift glance towards the door, the portières of which were drawn wide, and observing nobody in the court, said with the slightest hint of trouble in her voice:
“There is something else I ought to speak about. You remember that you advised me to make use of my first opportunity to visit the little stairway hidden these many years from everybody but my father? I did so, as I have already told you, and in that box, from which the will was drawn I found, doubled up and crushed into the bottom of it, this.”
Thrusting her hand into a large silken bag which lay at her side on the divan on which she was seated, she drew out a crumpled document which I took from her with some misgiving.
“The first will of all,” I exclaimed on opening it. “The one he was told by his lawyer to destroy, and did not.”
“But it is of no use now,” she protested. “It—it—”
“Take it,” I broke in almost harshly. The sight of it had affected me far beyond what it should have done. “Put it away—keep it—till I have time to—”
“To do what?” she asked, eyeing me with some wonder as she put the document back in the bag.
“To think out my whole duty,” I smiled, recovering myself and waving the subject aside.
“But,” she suggested timidly but earnestly as well, “won’t it complicate matters? Mr. Dunn bade Father to destroy it.” And her eye stole towards the fireplace where some small logs were burning.
“He would not tell us to do so now,” I protested. “You must keep it religiously, as we hope to keep our honor. Don’t you see that, cousin mine?”
“Yes,” came with pride now. But from what that pride sprung it would take more than man to tell.
And then I spoke of Edgar and won her glad consent to my intention of taking care of him as long as he would suffer it or need me. After which, she left me with the understanding that I would summon all the remaining members of the household and tell them from my personal knowledge what they would soon be learning, possibly with less accuracy, from the city newspapers.