XXXI
HOW CHANCES MOCK 2 Henry IV., iii. 1.
Maurice had seen Berenice only once since his encounter at the ball. He had hoped and dreaded to meet her, but for more than a week after his leaving the Clergy House he had failed. One morning he saw her walking before him on Beacon Street; and while he instantly said to himself that he trusted that she would not discover him, he hurried forward to overtake her. His feet carried him forward even while he told himself that he did not wish to go. He was beside her in a moment, and as he spoke she raised those rich, dark eyes with a glance which made him thrill.
"Good-morning," he said with his heart beating as absurdly as if the encounter were of the highest consequence.
"Good-morning, Mr. Wynne," she responded, with a manner entirely abstract.
She had started and blushed, he was sure, on perceiving him; but if so she had instantly recovered her self-possession. He was disconcerted by the coldness of her manner, and began to wish in complete earnest that he had not overtaken her.
"I beg your pardon for intruding," he said, his voice hardening, "but"—
"The public street is free to anybody, I suppose," she returned, with an air of studied politeness. "I don't claim any exclusive right to it."
"I didn't apologize for being on the street, but for speaking to you."
"Oh, that," answered Berenice carelessly, although he thought that he detected a spark of mischief in her eye, "is a thing of so little consequence that it isn't worth mentioning."
"I venture to speak to you," he said, ignoring the thrust, "because I have wanted to beg your pardon for my rudeness when I saw you last."
She turned upon him quickly, her cheeks aflame.
"Your rudeness?" she exclaimed. "Your brutality, I think you mean!"
It was his turn to grow red.
"My brutality, if you choose. I beg your pardon for whatever offended."
"It was unpardonable! It was a thing no woman could ever forgive!"
Maurice turned pale. He stopped where he stood.
"In that case," he said, bowing with formality, "I have no business to be speaking to you now."
He turned and was gone before she could add a word.
This interview probably made neither of the young persons happy; and Maurice it left entirely miserable. He was not without a proper pride, however, and in his present frame of mind was ready to call it to his aid. He bore a brave outward front. He resolved not to think of his love; yet he was not without the hardly confessed hope that if he could find the lost will he might be taking a step in the direction of the realization of his desires. He tried to forget Berenice in the very means he was taking to bring himself nearer to her.
He set out for Montfield one bright February day, amused at himself for the difference in his attitude toward the world from the mere fact that he had discarded the ecclesiastical garb. It gave him a fresh and delightful sensation to be traveling on business in clothing like that of other men. He had no longer any wish to be separated by his dress, and thought with contemptuous amusement of the lurking self-consciousness which had always attached itself in his mind to the fact that he was in a costume apart. He realized now that he had from this derived a certain satisfaction, half simple vanity and half the gratification of his histrionic instinct. He felt as if he had been like a child pleased to attract attention by a feather stuck in his cap, or a toy sword girt at his side. Now that the whole experience was past he could smile at it, but he had small patience with those who still retained the clerical garb. Men have usually little tolerance for the fault which they have but newly outgrown; and Maurice thought with a sort of amazement of his late fellows at the Clergy House, and of their manifest satisfaction in the dress they wore. It was almost with a sensation of self-righteousness that he enjoyed the habiliments of ordinary civilized man.
As the train sped on, and the scenery became more familiar as he approached nearer to Montfield, Maurice naturally fell to thinking, in an irregular, detached fashion, of his youth. Both Wynne's parents had died in his childhood, and there had been little to keep firm the bonds of family. Alice Singleton he had known, however, both as a girl and as the wife of his half brother, but he had known only to dislike and avoid her. He began now to wonder how she would receive him, and whether she would allude to the scene at Mrs. Rangely's when he had broken up her spiritualistic deception.
The train of thought into which reminiscence had plunged him carried him over his whole life. He realized for the first time that his religious experiences had been little more than a reflection of those of Philip. It was Ashe who had interested him in spiritual things, who had led him into the church, who had practically determined for him that he should become a priest. For the first time, and with profound amazement, Maurice realized how completely his theological life had been the growth of the mind of Ashe rather than of his own. The thought brought with it a sense of weakness and self-contempt.
"Haven't I any strength of character?" he asked himself. "In everything practical Phil has always relied on me. It was always Phil I cared for, not the church."
Imperfectly as he was able to phrase it, Maurice was not in the end without some reasonably clear conception of the fact that in his life Philip had represented the feminine element. It was by love for his friend that he had been led on. Now that his reason was fully awake this emotional yielding to the thought of another was no longer possible; now that his heart was filled with a passion for Berenice his nature no longer responded to the appeal of the feminine in Ashe.
Maurice was half aware that his was a character sure to be influenced greatly by affection; but he felt that it would never again be possible for him so to give up to another the guidance of his life as he now saw that he had yielded it to his friend. He had learned his weakness, and the lesson had been enforced too sharply ever to be forgotten.
He was coming now into the region of his old home. The forests were beginning faintly to show the approach of spring; the treetops were dimly warming in color, the branches thickening against the sky. Here and there Maurice looked down on a brook black with the late rains and with the floods from the snow-drifts still melting on the distant hills. Now he caught a far flash of the river where he had skated in winters almost forgotten, so fast does time move, where he had fished and bathed in summers so long gone that they seemed to belong to the life of some other. Yet once more and a distant hill, duskily blue against the bluer heavens, wakened for him some memory of his boyhood, seeming to challenge him to renew the old joys and to revel in the by-gone fervors.
All these things softened the mood in which Maurice came back to the old town, and as he walked up the village street, so well remembered yet so strange, he had a sense of unreality. The very homely familiarity of it all made it appear the more like a dream. He felt his heart-beats quicken as he approached the Ashe place, wondering if he should see Mrs. Ashe. He had always, with all his affection, felt for Philip's mother a sort of awe, as if she were more than a simple human creature. He found it difficult to understand that Mrs. Singleton should be staying with her, so incongruous was the association in his mind of two such women. With Mrs. Ashe, Alice must at least be at her best.
He walked up to the house, passing under the leafless lilac bushes with a keen remembrance of how they were laden with odors in June. He wondered if the tansy still grew under the sitting-room window, and if the lilies-of-the-valley flourished on the north side of the house as of old. Then he knocked with the quaint old black knocker, and with the sound came back the present and the thought that he had before him an interview which might be neither pleasant nor easy.
Mrs. Singleton herself opened the door.
"I saw you coming," she greeted him, "and there is nobody at home but me."
Maurice tried not to look disappointed.
"Then Mrs. Ashe is not at home?"
"No; she is out, and the girl is out. Will you come in? You probably didn't come to see me."
"But I did come to see you."
She led the way into the long, low sitting-room, with its many doors and its wide fireplace, so familiar that he might have left it yesterday.
"I can't imagine what you want of me," Mrs. Singleton said, waving her hand toward a chair. "The last time I saw you you didn't seem very fond of me."
She seated herself by the side of the fire in a great old-fashioned chair covered with chintz and spreading out wings on either side of her head.
"You are still angry, Alice, I see," he rejoined. "Well, I can't help that. I did what was right. How in the world could you make up your mind to fool those people so?"
"They wanted to be fooled; why not oblige them?"
He regarded her with astonishment. He had expected her to deny that her deception was deliberate, to claim that the manifestations were real. Her frank and cynical speech disconcerted him. He had no reply. She broke into a sneering laugh.
"There," she said, "you didn't come here to talk about that séance.
What did you come for?"
"I came to ask you if you still have Aunt Hannah's desk."
She regarded him keenly.
"The little traveling desk?"
"Yes."
"What if I have?"
"But have you?"
"Oh, I don't mind telling you that. I don't see that it can do you any good to know that I have it. I always carry it round with me. It's so convenient."
"Will you sell it to me?"
"Certainly not. If you didn't want it, I might give it to you; but if you do you can't have it."
Maurice began to feel his anger rising. He felt helpless before this woman, with her innocent, baby face, this woman with the guileless look of a child and a child's freedom from moral scruples, who faced him with a smile of pleased malice. It might be unwise to tell his real errand, but she surely could not do any harm greater than to be disagreeable. There must be some method, he reflected, of getting at the thing legally; but what it was he was entirely ignorant; and now that he had shown a desire for the desk he was confident that Mrs. Singleton would persist until she had discovered the truth. He could think of nothing to do but to make a clean breast of the whole matter. He nerved himself to the task, and told her of the finding of Norah and of what followed.
"Have you ever discovered that the desk had a false bottom?" he asked in conclusion.
"No, brother Maurice. The spirits hadn't revealed it to me. But then I never asked them about that."
There was an air of triumphant glee in her manner, an open and mocking sneer, which dismayed him. He was sure that he had erred in telling her his secret; yet he reflected that he could hardly have done otherwise, and that she surely would not dare to refuse to give up a legal document so important.
"Will you let me examine the desk?"
"I am so happy to oblige you," she returned. "Though whether your story is true or not must depend, you know, upon the unsupported testimony of the medium—I mean of the speaker."
Maurice rose and went toward her, facing her squarely.
"I understand, Alice," he said, "that you don't love me, and I haven't come to ask favors. This is a matter of simple honesty. I certainly don't think you would willfully keep me out of my property."
"Thank you for drawing the line somewhere. It was so noble of you to interfere at Mrs. Rangely's! You didn't in the least mind robbing me of my good name, and them of the comfort of believing it was real. Besides, I did see things! I swear to you that I did! I am a medium in spite of whatever you say. I can call up spirits!"
Her voice rose as she went on, and he feared lest she should work herself into one of her furies of excitement and temper which he had seen of old.
"Why should we go back to that?" he said, as gently as he could. "That is past, and I only did what I thought was my duty."
"Oh, you did your duty, did you?" she sneered.
"Well, I'll do mine now. Stay here, while I go and empty that old desk.
I'll match you in doing my duty!"
She hurried tumultuously from the room, leaving Maurice in anything but an enviable frame of mind. He began to walk up and down, assailed by old memories at every turn, yet so disturbed by Mrs. Singleton's words and manner that he could not heed the recollections. The minutes passed, and Alice did not return. It seemed to him that she took a long time to remove her papers from the desk. Then he smiled to himself in bitter amusement and impatience. Of course his sister-in-law was trying to discover the secret of the double bottom. She would probably persevere until she had gained the precious document of which he had come in search. She would read it, and then—He broke off in his reverie with an exclamation of impatience. What a fool he had been to attempt to deal with this woman alone! He had, it was true, expected to find Mrs. Ashe, but he should have sent a lawyer. What did he, a puppet from the Clergy House, know of managing the affairs of life? He felt that he had failed in his match with Mrs. Singleton; and he had almost made up his mind to go in search of her, when he heard her returning.
She came in with her face flushed, her eyes shining, and an air of triumph which struck dismay to the heart of Maurice.
"I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long," she said, "but I had to light a fire in the parlor, I was so cold. However, I have something to show you that will interest you."
"Is it the will?" he asked eagerly.
She answered with a laugh, but led the way across the narrow front entry into the parlor. The pleasant noise of a crackling fire sounded within, and as he entered the room he saw that the fireplace was filled with a ruddy blaze. Then he rushed forward with a cry. There on the top of the blazing logs were the unmistakable remains of the desk, eaten through and through by tongues of red flame. He seized the tongs, and dragged the burning mass to the hearth, but even as he did so he saw that he was too late.
"It is kind of you to want to save my old desk, Maurice," jeered his companion; "but I had the misfortune to put the poker through the bottom of it before I called you, so that I'm afraid it really isn't worth saving."
He saw that the wood had indeed been punched through and through, and that it was reduced almost to a cinder. It was easy to see that the bottom had been double, and burned flakes of paper were visible among the remains; whether of the will or not it was obviously impossible now to discover. He looked at the burned bits of board falling into ashes and cinders at his feet, realizing that here was an end to all his dreams of regaining his aunt's fortune; that with this dream ended, too, his visions of being in a position to offer Berenice—His wrath blazed up in an uncontrollable force.
"You are a fiend!" he cried, facing the woman who smiled beside him.
"You are a thief, a shameless, deliberate thief!"
She stood the image of mirthful, innocent girlhood, her smooth forehead unclouded, her eyes gleaming as if with the merriment of a child.
"It is a pretty fire, isn't it, Maurice?"
Then her whole expression changed. Into her dark, dewy eyes came a look of rage, visible murder in a glance.
"You called me a liar, there in Boston," she said hissingly. "I am not surprised to have you add thief now. I have only done what I chose with my own property; but I would have been cut into little bits before you should have had that will through me!"
He could not trust himself to reply. He felt that if he spoke he might break out into curses, and he was conscious of an unmanly longing to strike her, to mar that beautiful, false face, childlike and pure in every line,—for the expression of rage had melted as quickly as it had come,—to feel the joy of seeing her limbs slacken and her red lips grow white. He clinched his hands and turned resolutely away.
"I'm sure I don't know that there was anything there that you had any interest in," she pursued lightly. "I tried as long as I dared to get the bottom open, and I couldn't, so I decided that it wasn't any of my business. Only when I put the poker through there seemed to be papers there."
Maurice could endure no more. He started toward her so fiercely that she recoiled, a sudden pallor blanching her rosy loveliness. Then he turned abruptly away again, and got out of the house.