Chapter XXI OPENING THE PAST
"Are you sure of what you tell me?" asked Durgan.
Bertha answered: "Yes; I do not know what she wrote, but I am sure it was her confession."
"You don't know what she wrote," sharply. "How do you know she confessed?"
"She told me so."
"Then, even in the face of that, I say she is innocent."
"Innocent—ah, yes, indeed—of any motive, any intent, of any knowledge at the moment of what she was doing. As innocent as any angel of God. Do you think I do not know the heart, the life, of my sister? It was madness, or the possession of a demon. It was madness that came suddenly, like a fit or stroke. That is why I want to know what I ought to do. It may come back; any excitement, any association with the former attack, might bring it back. Oh, consider her case, and tell me what I ought to do. When you first came I was terrified. You did not see how much roused she was—she is so shy and quiet—but I saw a new light in her eyes. Your name is mixed up with the thought of our father in a very sad way. I was frightened then, but mercifully nothing happened. Then about the letters—ah, she was vexed about that, and I was so frightened lest she should be ill again. Then, when the colored boy came, I dared not let her be alone with him. He brought all the details of that dreadful time back to us and—ah, I thought, living as we do and keeping him from her, I had taken every precaution, but—on the morning after that poor woman was killed, I found, oh, Mr. Durgan, I found her handkerchief in the wood where she never goes. I found it because the dogs were scenting something and I followed, and the place was in a direct line from where poor Eve——" she stopped, shuddering.
"You did not tell Alden this?"
"Oh, no. How could I? And now I hardly believe—at least, I don't think she could have been out that night. She has been so calm since. I am sure she cannot have gone out; but I don't know—I don't know what I ought to believe or do."
The miserable recital of her fears and perplexities came to an end only when her voice failed her. Durgan had been obliged to listen attentively to gather her full purport. He knew certainly that Miss Claxton had been out alone that night, that the tree which she had climbed was, in fact, in a line between Eve's beautiful deathbed and her own back door. Nor did anyone know at what hour Eve died. His own assumption that Miss Claxton had gone out only as far as the tree to leave money for 'Dolphus had only the slightest foundation, and the mulatto's movements certainly did not confirm it.
While he reviewed all this with some reasonable horror, he found that his inward belief of the propriety of all Miss Claxton's actions was not shaken. His faith was obstinate, and facts had to be made to fit into it.
"Let us take this terrible secret of yours, and spread it out to the light quite calmly. You believe your sister did this first dreadful thing in a fit of sudden madness, from which she seems to have recovered immediately, as no one else thought her mad. Did you believe this at the time of the trial?"
"I did not know what to think then."
"After that, while you were abroad together, were you always in terror like this?"
"Oh, no. It was when we were coming home that my sister had an illness. It was then that she told me of her confession and where to find it if it was ever needed. Then, knowing what must have been the matter, and that it might come again, I was determined to find a lonely house where I thought I should be the only one in danger. I thought I could take that risk, as I only risked myself. When we found this house I felt sure we were safe from intrusion and excitement."
"After you heard of this confession you decided that she was subject to homicidal mania. When I intruded on your privacy you feared for my life in your house. You have feared for your own life whenever any cause of excitement came up, and thought everyone near her was in danger. You think now that such an attack may have been the cause of Eve's death."
Bertha rose up in the twilight, looking like a trembling, guilty thing, and slunk away from his cool voice and overbearing manner.
"Do you think I have been so terribly wicked to keep this secret?" she moaned.
"I think you have been very foolish; but as your folly arose from tenderness to your sister, I suppose you must be forgiven. You ought to have told your sister or Alden, or consulted a good doctor. You would have found then that you were mistaken."
"How could I speak to anyone without causing suspicion? How could I speak to her when I thought her only chance of continued health lay in forgetting? Indeed, our own family doctor, who never guessed this, told us after the trial was over that our only chance of health and leading useful lives was never to talk or let ourselves think of our trouble. Before we went abroad he warned us again and again."
"He was wise. And you—have you been obeying him?"
"How can you speak to me like this?"
"It is the medicine you need. Your sister is not mad—has never been mad. It is now years since your misfortune, and had there been want of balance or brain disease, it would have shown itself by now. Your sister is not obstinate or foolish. She is not subject to attacks of emotion, nor does she lack self-control. There is no sign of any such mania as could make such a crime possible to a well-principled woman."
"But—oh, but—I read constantly in the papers of people who kill themselves, or kill others and themselves afterwards. The verdict is always 'temporary insanity.' I supposed there was such a thing."
"That verdict is usually a cloak for ignorance; but it assumes that had such people lived they would have shown symptoms of mental disease."
Bertha raised her hands and clasped them above her head. She drew a long breath, dilating her frame, and looked off where an empty yellow sky circled a fading landscape. "If I could only believe you—ah—if I could only believe you, I should ask no greater happiness in heaven."
"Believe me, I am telling you the truth."
"But—but——"
"Sit down again, child," he said.
The term "child," used constantly by the negroes to express half-humorous or gentle chiding, comes very naturally to Southern lips. It carried with it little suggestion of the difference of age between them, but gave a sense of comradeship and good-will which comforted her. He pulled down a bundle of hay to cushion her seat on the steps.
"Now tell me all the 'buts,'" he said.
"Alas, Mr. Durgan, you cannot scold away our great trouble and my fears. You cannot smile them into insignificance; but now I am willing to tell you our story, and when it is told I hope you will see that you, too, must bury it forever in silence, as I have tried to do."
She began again. "There is another reason, which you don't know yet, why I must tell you now. It is this 'Dolphus. I will try to be quick. Do you know all that was put in the newspapers about us—about the trial?"
Durgan made a sign of assent.
"Day after day the court discussed every detail of our family life and of that awful day—held it up to the whole world with an awful minuteness and intensity. And Hermie was in prison when she was not in court—oh, I wonder we lived—and it was all such a farce. They got hold of everything but the things that mattered. They never came near them.
"They tried to make out that we hated poor mamma because she was not our own mother, and were jealous lest papa should make a will in her favor. What rubbish! She was only a pretty doll, and had money of her own. No one could hate her, and papa never thought of leaving her our money. We never thought about his will."
"I quite believe that," said Durgan heartily.
"The facts they did not get hold of were about the boy they made such a mystery of."
"What did they know about the boy?"
"One of the servants let him in, and one of the neighbors saw him come in. They both took him for a beggar: one thought he was an Italian. Hermie and I knew more. I gave evidence that he had come in, and that we had not seen him leave the hall, where he waited, or seen him again that morning, which was true. But he did not come as a beggar, he did not go away before the trouble, or vanish after it. He was hidden in the house all that day, and we arranged his escape at night. In court they never asked questions that I could not answer about him, for they never once guessed."
"Guessed what?"
"That we wanted to save him. Their one idea was that we wanted him to be found. Mr. Alden moved the earth to find him, and he was conducting our case."
"Who was the boy?"
"May I tell you all I know? The boy was 'Dolphus. He was only a messenger—a servant of that man who was raising spirits in dark rooms and making them give messages and——"
"You mean Beardsley?"
"Yes. You said the other night that he was supposed not to be a common medium. My sister has told me that Mrs. Durgan——"
"Yes, yes, I know."
"I only mean that just a few people went to him, and my father had gone. Oh, I believe he went often, and he used to tell us things that vexed Hermie so."
"What things?"
"Oh, about knocks and tables moving. And then dear father began to receive knocks and messages from our mother. That made Hermie almost frantic. She remembered mother well, and was offended. She called it 'profanity.' But I am sure my father did not know how it vexed her; he was always so considerate."
"The boy came from Beardsley?"
"Oh, yes. We knew, and know, nothing about the boy. He asked for my father, and was told to wait in the kitchen. I saw him there, and so did the maids. But only Hermie knew about the note—he gave it to her. She took it upstairs. I saw that she looked very white and angry. She told me that it was a message from that 'shameful impostor.' Then Hermie asked me to gather fruit in the garden, and she sent out the maids up the street. Then, some time after that, she—ah, you know it all!—gave the alarm. She called in people, and they went and rang for the police. She was very calm. Everyone knows the whole story after that."
"Yes; but tell me what you did."
"She never allowed me to go into that room where—— She told me my father was too much disfigured for me to recognize him. Oh, I thought of nothing but the loss of my father all that day. I went into his dressing-room and cried there. I took out his dear clothes and laid my head on them. Hermie sat with me part of the day. The police were in charge of the house; but no one had thought then of accusing her.
"When it was dark night Hermie came to me and said that there was something we could do for father's sake, and I must help her. She told me the boy was in the house and he was innocent, but that if he was found he might be arrested unjustly. She told me that some great disgrace might fall on father's name if we did not get him safely away. Oh, I did not at all understand at the time that she meant that if he were charged she must confess and be convicted. She chose some clothes of father's, and then I found that the boy was locked in a very narrow press in that very room. He put on the clothes, and he and Hermie knotted some dark thing together and we let him down from the window in the dark to the garden. He got in the neighbor's garden. She told him how to get from garden to garden. The police were about, but he got away. Her mind seemed quite clear. She said that because the boy was innocent it was our duty to tell nothing that could lead to his capture. She never told Mr. Alden that she knew who the boy was or who sent him, that he had brought a letter, or how he escaped."
"But how was she so certain that he was innocent?"
"Ah, that is what I have asked myself night and day for years. What could make her certain but one thing? She knew, and if she knew that anyone else had committed the deed, why not tell and exonerate the boy?"
"It is most extraordinary," said Durgan. The words were wrung from him almost without his will.
Bertha took no notice. "Then that night she did not know what she was saying. She thought she saw all sorts of strange things in the room, and she talked continually, as if seeing people who were not there. Her words were quite fantastic and related to nothing I could understand. But occasionally, when she seemed more coherent, she told me that the police would come for her, that she would be proved to be guilty, and begged me in the most touching terms to love her in spite of all. In the daytime she would get up and go about the house, and she appeared composed; but I knew her well enough to see that she was still strange. But she never said a word, except when we were alone, to lead anyone to suppose that she knew more than she first told. On the third day Mr. Alden told us that she would be taken to prison. It was an awful shock to me, but it seemed to rouse her and bring back her faculties. We were alone together for about an hour. After she had tried to soothe and comfort me by speaking of duty, of God, and of heaven, she spoke to me very solemnly, and told me not to grieve for any hardship that befell her, for she had broken the law and must suffer if she was condemned; but that, short of doing or saying anything to inculpate anyone else, she would do all that could be done to convince the world of her innocence. She said: 'It would be worse for you, and for father's sake, if I were convicted. I will fight for my liberty unless someone else is accused; but remember, if anyone else is accused, I shall have to do what will bring disgrace. Remember that, Bertha. Remember that if any circumstance should come to your knowledge to tempt you to accuse anyone else, that will put an end to my hopes.' She said this very solemnly several times. Then she told me the lines on which Mr. Alden would probably have the case conducted; and that I must tell nothing but the truth, but refuse to tell about the boy, or what she had told me. I never heard anyone speak more clearly and collectedly. She foresaw almost everything. Our other lawyers and Mr. Alden said the same thing, that her intellect was almost like that of a trained lawyer in its prevision of the effect of evidence."
"And did you believe her guilty?"
"I did not know what to think. I was stunned. I dared not think, for it took all my mind to act the part she assigned to me. But afterwards, during the long time she was in prison and during the trial, I believed her innocent. When I thought of her goodness and the perfectly unforeseen and inexplicable manner of the way poor papa and mamma died, I could not think Hermione guilty, and I did not. As to the wild things she said in those nights, I supposed she had been in a fever, and put down all I could not understand to that.
"Then we formed the plan of going abroad and returning to some place like this, only not so lonely. We packed all our valuables to be put in a safe by Mr. Alden. When my sister had packed the family papers and her own jewelry and locked and sealed the box, she called me to look at it and gave me the key. When she was ill in Paris she told me of her confession, and that it lay at the bottom of this box. But she asked me most solemnly never to open it unless someone else was falsely accused. She told me that she had no further motive in life than to make up to me as far as possible for all that I had innocently suffered; but she begged me not to make life too hard for her by ever speaking of this matter again. I have never spoken to her again about it."
Bertha's voice had become very melancholy; now she ceased.
"This mulatto calling himself 'Dolphus is certainly the boy?"
"Yes—oh, yes; we both knew him the moment he turned up again."
"Have you never seen him between then and now?"
"No."
"Where has he been?"
"I don't know."
"How did he find you?"
"By bribing the porter in Mr. Alden's office to show him the letters he carried. He has a right to protection and support from us, for there is still a great reward offered for him. Mr. Alden offered it."
"And Alden does not guess that this is he?"
"How should he? He has no idea that we would hide him. But now we cannot conceive what will happen, for altho we are sure that he won't tell about us as long as he has a chance of escape, Hermie herself says that if he is condemned he may, in despair and revenge, tell all that he knows."
"Alden must be told this."
She sprang up with great energy. "He must not know. It is the one thing Hermie will not let him know if it is possible to help it. Oh, of course the worst catastrophe may come and overwhelm us; but while we have hope of escape, Hermie will not let Mr. Alden know that."
It had become dark. Hermione Claxton was looking for her sister, walking across the meadow and calling in motherly tones.
"Answer me just one thing. Did your sister tell you in plain words that she committed this deed?"
"No; she did not. But I have tried to make what she said mean anything else. In any case she would not have said a word she could help; such words are too terrible. Can you think I have not sought to believe otherwise?"
She said this in a tense, hurried voice, and standing at the barn door, called back: "I'm coming, I'm coming, dear."
"She never did it," said Durgan strongly. "She knows who did. She is shielding someone."
"That is very easy to say," said the girl scornfully. "Of one thing I am certain; there is no one on earth she would shield at my expense. Think what we have suffered while she fought through that terrible trial. She knows no one, loves no one on earth, but me and Mr. Alden."
"I'm coming, I'm coming, darling."
She took up her empty pail and ran.