CHAPTER XXXII.—“A WICKED WOMAN!”
When Isabel looked into her mirror next morning, the image shown back fairly startled her. Day by day during this eventful week the glass had helped her to grow familiar with reddened eyes, with harsh, ageing lines, and with a pallor which no devices of the toilet could efface. It was not so much an added accentuation of these which riveted her gaze, now, upon the mirror, as the suggestion of a new face—of a stranger’s countenance, reflecting meanings and thoughts of the uncommon kind.
She studied the face at first with an almost impersonal interest; then as the brain associated these lineaments with her own, and made their expression a part of her own spiritual state, she said to this other self in the glass, audibly:
“Another week of this will make you an old woman.” She added, after a pause of fascinated yet critical scrutiny: “Yes, and a wicked woman, too!” There has been what one can only hope is an intelligible reluctance, from the beginning of this recital, to essay analysis or portrayal of Isabel’s thoughts and motives. A complex, contradictory character like hers, striving now to assimilate, now to sway the simple, straightforward, one-stringed natures with which it is environed, may be illustrated; it is too great a task to dissect it. Yet for the once we may venture to look into this troubled mind.
A wicked woman! The phrase which she had addressed aloud to the mocking image in the glass, in mingled doubt and irony, clung to her meditations. Had she ever meant to be wicked—ever deliberately, or even consciously, chosen evil instead of good? No! There was no dubious reservation in her answer. Yet within the week—oh, the horrible week!—she had come to occupy a moral position for which hell could not hold too relentless or fierce a punishment. She had hugged to her heart thoughts which, when they are linked with acts, go to expiation on the gallows. She shuddered now at the recollection of them; she could recall that she had shuddered then, too. Yet all the same these thoughts were a part of her—belonged to her. She had not repelled them as alien, or as unwelcome. Even while in terror at their mien, she had embraced them. Was this not all wickedness?
The reply came, in sophistical self-defense, that no one act or emotion of a life could be judged by itself. The antecedent circumstances, leading up to it, must be taken into account. She had been borne along on the current of a career shaped for her by others. She was not responsible—she had never fought with her destiny—she had done nothing but seek to bring some flowers and light and color into the desolate voyage of life. Was it fair to say that these little innocent, womanish efforts to soften a sterile existence were the cause of the shipwreck—that it was these which had brought her so suddenly, dazed and terrified, into the very breakers on the sinister rocks of crime? No, the answer came again; surely it could not be fair.
Yet she had hated her husband; she had been overjoyed, even while she was affrighted, by the news of his death—or at least there was a tremulous sensation very like joy; she had hailed as her deliverer the young man whom her wild fancy made responsible for that death—yes, had even in her frenzy kissed his hand, the hand which she then believed to have blood upon it, his brother’s blood! her husband’s blood! Were not these the thoughts and actions of a wicked woman? What difference was there between her and the vilest murderess confined for life in a penitentiary?
Or no! What nonsense this was! What single thing had she said or done to bring on the catastrophe? It was an accident—everybody knew that now. But even if it had not been an accident, how would she have been to blame? Was it her fault that she was pleasing in men’s eyes, or that Seth had been attracted by her, and had been sympathetic to her? How could she have helped it? Was there any reason why she should have tried to help it? Was it wrong for her, exiled as she was to this miserable farm life, to make a friend of her cousin—her husband’s brother? And if they had grown to be attached to each other, could it be wondered at?
And it had all been so innocent, too! What single compromising word, even, had ever been spoken! Might not the most blameless of women have had just such a pretty little romantic friendship, without dream of harm?
As for the frantic things she had thought and said on that awful forenoon after the discovery, she strove to put them away from her memory, as born of a hysterical, wholly irresponsible state.
But they would come back, no matter how often banished.
Then, too—perhaps worst of all, for honest John seemed to lay particular stress upon it—was the terrible declaration she had made to Annie. About this there could be no self-deception. She would not pretend to herself that this had been done through any but revengeful? spiteful motives—pure cruelty, in fact. But was she to be thus coolly pushed aside, her romance shattered, her dear day-dream dissipated—and not to be justified in striking back?
This conceited boy—she was able thus to think of Seth now, in his absence, and in the light of the affront she felt he had put upon her—and this country school-teacher, to come billing and cooing in the very hour of her supreme excitement—did they not deserve just what they had received? After all, her words had done no permanent harm.. Doubtless by this time they had all been cleared up. And if Miss Annie did suffer a little, what better was she than other people, to be free all her life from heartaches?
But then came a mental picture of Annie’s calm, sweet, lightful face transfixed with speechless horror at the brutal words—and after it, close and searching, the question: “Why should I have stabbed Annie? She was always kindness itself to me. Was it not heartless to make that poor girl suffer?” And there followed in her mind, as an echo of her first exclamation to the mirror—that had gathered reverberating force from all the thoughts we have striven to trace—the haunting cry: “A wicked woman!”
Afternoon came, and the battle still went on. Bitter condemnation of her own conduct struggled with angry pleas of grievance against others, and the conflict wearied her into what threatened to be a sick headache. The idea of getting out into the open air and seeking relief in a walk, which had been dormantly in her mind all day, finally took form, and led her outside the homestead for the first time since her husband’s death.
Once outside, she walked aimlessly through the orchard—in preference to the high road, where she might meet neighbors—toward the little family graveyard. It was not until she had nearly reached this spot that she recalled having heard that Seth, too, came here on that terrible night. The recollection brought an added sense of all the wrongs she held to have been done her. She stood for a long time by the old board fence, with its coating of dry, mildew-like moss on the weather-beaten surfaces turned to the north, and its inhospitable hedging of brown, half-bare briars, and looked in reverie upon the tombs within the enclosure.
Three generations of the Fairchilds lay here under the straggling mat of withered strawberry vines. She saw the low blue-slate slabs, nearly covered now by aspiring weeds and brambles, which modestly pleaded in antique letters that the original shoemaker, Roger, and his lowly spouse might not be altogether forgotten. Rising ostentatiously above these timid, ancient memorials, as if with intent to divert attention from their humility, was the marble obelisk marking the resting-place of the family’s greatest man, the Hon. Seth Fairchild. The monument was not so white or so imposing now as it once had been, and the proud inscription setting forth how its subject had been “twice Senator of the State of New York,” was almost illegible from the storm-stains and mould on its venerable front. There were some other stones, gray and small, tipping humbly toward the central monolith, as if mutely begging at least a little share of the Senator’s greatness for his wife and sisters, and nearer were two plain modern slabs recounting the sole interesting facts of the colorless lives of Lemuel and Cicely Fair-child—that they had been alive, and now were dead.
Here still nearer her, almost at her feet, the widow saw some pegs driven in the ground, with string stretched around them to form a long rectangle. The sight brought no thrill to her. She was conscious of all its meaning, but felt herself scarcely interested. In life she had owed nothing but dislike to the man whose last coming these signs of preparation betokened. His death had shocked her at first by its fearful suddenness; it did not especially disturb her now, save at times with a furtive elation at the accompanying thought that at last she was free. Her thoughts were with the living—and their relation to those long since dead.
If these rambling thoughts could have been summarized in words they would have run in this fashion:
“What has all your family pride brought you, all your planning and manoeuvring, you dull countrymen? I wasn’t good enough for you, eh? Your breed must conspire against me, eh? and treat me like an interloper, an outsider, eh? You thought I was to be brought here too, did you, when my time arrived, and be snubbed and bullied into some back corner like the rest of your wives, while my husband, ‘the Congressman,’ had a big monument like this of your old humbug, the Senator? And you expected to patronize me, or cut me dead, as the living dolts here on the turnpike have done, did you? Well, you are fooled! I’ve escaped you! I shall never come here but once again—to bring you your ‘Congressman.’ You can have him and welcome. And that old cat of an aunt of his, she will come presently, too, and I wish you much joy of her! And perhaps you will give up your idea, then, that you amount to anything, or ever will amount to anything. The farm is going to a young man who will sell it, and who doesn’t care a cent for the whole crowd of you, and who will live in a city, and eat with his fork, and forget that there ever were such people as you. And he will forget, too, that——”
She came to a full stop in her meditations. Yes, Seth would forget her, too. She had no illusions on this point. Perhaps this was too kindly a view of it, even—he might be compelled to remember her by sheer force of his bitterness toward her. There could be no doubt, after his cruel words on the eventful forenoon—their last meeting—that he scorned and despised her. What an idiot she had been to disclose to him her thoughts—those mad fancies and beliefs of that frantic morning! She might have known that the idea of his fighting his brother, on her account, was preposterous. What did he care about her? He had been nice with her, had written her pretty, graceful letters when she asked him to do so, and had sent her books to read—that was all. There was nothing else. She had been a fool to dream that there was anything else. He would sell the farm, and go back to Tecumseh, and marry Annie—yes, marry Annie! And they, too, would refer to her now and then, and comment on her wickedness, and hope that they might never have a daughter like her. That would be all.
She turned from the little enclosure of graves, without giving them another thought. The mental picture which she conjured up of the young couple, contented by a fireside of their own, perhaps with a child, tore at her heart-strings.
In the farm-yard she was met by Mr. Ansdell, who was evidently watching for her, and who introduced himself courteously.
“The Coroner is here,” he said, “with some medical gentlemen, and there are also your late husband’s partner, Mr. Hubbard, who accompanied me from New York last night, and the District Attorney and some others. In a couple of hours or so we expect to be able to tell you what brought us. Meanwhile, we are anxious to spare you any possible intrusion—and also a possible scene. It is for this that I have waited outside for you. If you could prolong your walk for that length of time, going to some friend’s house near by, for instance, without saying that anything unusual was transpiring here——”
“Yes, I will go,” she answered. “Will two hours be long enough?”
“I hope so,” he said, bowing his thanks.
She walked out through the great swing-gate to the turnpike, and idly chose the westward turning, along under the poplars. The curious incident of all these visitors at the house did not excite her attention. Her mind was too busy torturing itself with that marriage which was already spoken of as assured.
At the stile by the thorns, the idea of going to the Warren house suddenly occurred to her. It was a bold, purposeless, almost crazy thought; perhaps for those very reasons it commended itself to her mood. She felt herself impelled alike by good and malignant impulses to cross the stile; she walked down the thorn path, scarcely knowing whether her purpose was to bless or to curse.
The door was opened by Samantha, whose scared face took on an added expression of anxiety on recognizing the visitor.
“Go into the parlor, ’n’ I’ll light the stove fer yeh,” she whispered. “Th’ old lady’s very laow. Soon’s she comes hum from schewl I’ll send Annie in to see yeh.”