Chapter XXIV THE WOMAN WITH A SECRET
Durgan had ridden down the hills in rather leisurely fashion; now he urged his horse to speed. He had come uncertain how to meet the issue of the day; now he was eager to forestall the issue of the next.
He had brought from his interview with the dying prisoner a strong impression that the poor fellow had more mind and purpose than he had supposed, and that he certainly had some scheme on hand from the development of which he expected excitement and some lively satisfaction.
The hints thrown out sounded madder than the supposed raving of his last night of freedom. He had control over some unknown person, or persons, of wealth in New York, who would send to save him, and he would sacrifice something—perhaps his salvation—to Miss Claxton; further, he threatened Durgan with discomfiture.
What could seem more mad than all this? But to-day Durgan was not at all sure that the poor creature did not mean all he said and could not do all he promised. The development of the mulatto's purpose might be left to time, but Durgan's purpose was to follow up the clues he had obtained, and two facts had to be dealt with now. 'Dolphus had freely expressed the belief that Miss Claxton had shielded an unknown criminal of the male sex whom she loved. Durgan had been so astonished, and even shocked, at hearing his own bold surmise so quickly and fully corroborated, that he knew now for the first time how little confidence he had had in his own detective powers. Further, it was probably this guilty person over whom 'Dolphus had power. He was rich, and could not be unknown; he was within reach, for he had recently telegraphed, and the address given must be meant to find him. Durgan felt that it would be criminal to lose a moment in putting this clue in Alden's hand.
Bertha had desired that Alden should be left in ignorance of the mulatto's identity because she feared it might lead to her sister's condemnation; now that 'Dolphus himself had implied that he could clear the sister's reputation, Bertha could not, must not, hesitate. Miss Claxton's desire to hide from Alden who the mulatto was and what he knew must be part of her desire to hide the miscreant; but with time, Durgan was ready to believe, this desire must have lessened or almost failed, as love must have cooled. In any case, Miss Claxton held all her desires as subordinate to the will of God; persuasion, reason, pressure, must move her. Durgan urged on his horse.
All the way home he passed over shady roads flecked with pink sunlight. The heaviest foliage of summer mantled the valleys. The birds were almost still, resting in the deep shadows of the mature season.
When Durgan was almost within hearing of the waterfall and the hum of the saw-mill at Deer Cove, he met three riders. Mr. Alden and Bertha, in company with young Blount, were descending for a gallop in the cool of the evening. They all stopped to say they had heard by post that the trial was deferred, and to inquire after Adam's welfare.
Durgan could reply cheerfully as to Adam, that he was spending his time in ablutions and pious exercises, and that the authorities were bent upon having him acquitted.
"Reckon they are," said young Blount. "My father saw to that when he went over."
Durgan saw that neither Bertha nor Mr. Alden would ask about the other prisoner in his cousin's presence. He said in a casual tone, "The yellow fellow seems assured that he will have money and influence behind him, too, by next week."
"Yes," cried Blount, interested always in minutiæ, "he sent a letter and received a telegram."
Durgan rode on. He must wait now an hour or two for an opportunity to speak to Alden or Bertha, and he began to wonder whether it would not be more honorable to approach Miss Claxton direct, confess what he had chanced to see of her secret actions, and tell her frankly what the mulatto had let fall that day. His borrowed horse had been offered the hospitality of her stable for the night, so he must, perforce, reach the summit.
The horse rubbed down and fed in the spacious stable, Durgan sought the front of the low house, now richly decorated by the scarlet trumpet-flower, which had conquered the other creepers of earlier summer, and had thrown out its triumphal flag from the very chimneys.
He found the lady, as he had expected, sitting quietly busy at some woman's work in the front porch. The house mastiff lay at her feet, and round the corner came the low, sweet song of the colored maid who had taken Eve's place in the kitchen. The rich crimson plant called "love-lies-bleeding," now in full flower, trailed its tassels on the earth on either side of the low doorway. It seemed, indeed, a fit emblem of the tragedy of the life beside it.
Miss Claxton welcomed Durgan with her usual self-effacing gentleness. "Bertha and Mr. Alden have ridden out with Mr. Blount. Thought likely you would have met them."
Durgan's avowal of the meeting caused her to expect an explanation of his visit; but for some minutes he dallied, glad to rest in her gentle presence, and feeling now the extreme difficulty of saying things he thought it only honorable to say.
He had hitherto blamed Bertha and Alden for not addressing themselves to Miss Claxton more openly. He now realized to what degree she had the power which many of the meekest people possess, of hiding from the strife of tongues behind their own gentle, inapproachable dignity.
Durgan rested in pacific mood while she uttered gentle words of sympathy for his fatigue, and fell into a muse of astonishment that she should be the center of such pressing and tragic interests. So strong was his silent thought that it would have forced him into questions had she been less strong. He longed to ask, "Why do you assume that this 'Dolphus will not expose the criminal you have suffered so much to hide?"
Instead, he only began to describe his visits to the prisoners, taking Adam first, and coming naturally to 'Dolphus.
"It was real kind of you, Mr. Durgan, to see after him; and it was very mean of the jail folks not to wash up for him. He had money to pay them."
"The doctor will make them stand round. But I wanted to tell you that I have been wondering upon what or whom 'Dolphus relies for his defence. Adam has such a strong backing, there seems to be no doubt of his acquittal. I did not know this till I went to-day, or how little difference the emancipation has really made as to the justice or injustice meted out to niggers. I supposed—I have been absent since the close of the war—that the evidence given at the trial would be all-important. Now I think the conclusion is foregone; judge and jury, whoever the jurors may be, have already fallen into the belief that I and my cousins have insisted on."
She had dropped her work; she was absorbed in his every word. "It's a bad principle, of course," she said; "but as to Adam, it is working out all right. I suppose—I suppose, Mr. Durgan, that 'Dolphus did kill poor Eve? I'd feel pretty mean if he's being punished for nothing."
"I believe he did; but I have no proof."
"I don't mind telling you, Mr. Durgan, that I got Mr. Alden to get a lawyer—quite privately, of course—to offer his services to 'Dolphus—to tell him we would pay the costs, because Adam and Eve were our 'help,' and of course we wanted to see only justice done. 'Dolphus wouldn't accept it. He refused; we don't know why. He told the lawyer he knew 'a game worth two of that.' Of course, if there is miscarriage of justice, we can't feel quite so badly as if we hadn't made the offer."
"What do you think he meant by 'knowing a better game'?"
"It wasn't just fooling, was it, Mr. Durgan?" Underneath her quiet there was now a tremulous eagerness; her faded eyes looked to his with sorrowful appeal.
"No; after seeing him to-day, I am inclined to think more of him than I did; but I think he's up to tricks of some sort. May I tell you what he said to me, Miss Claxton?"
"I'm just praying to the Lord all the time, Mr. Durgan, and trying to leave it all in His hands. He won't let us suffer more than is right; and I hope He'll give us grace to bear what He sends, if it isn't the full deliverance I pray for."
Durgan was nonplused. "Do you mean to say you would rather not hear what the man said? because I must tell Alden, and as it concerns you most, I thought——"
"Yes, I guess perhaps I ought to hear it. And if you tell me you don't need to tell Mr. Alden, because I know better than you what he ought to hear—that is, if it concerns me."
This seemed a simple and self-evident view of the case; Durgan hardly knew how he could have thought of interfering. Nor did he find it at all easy to put significance into the prisoner's words apart from his own foreknowledge and prejudgment of the case.
"'Dolphus suggested to me that I would not wish to see justice done in—to say the truth—in your own case, Miss Claxton. He challenged me, asking if I were willing to make a sacrifice to prove your innocence."
She looked at him straight. Her eyes were not faded now; he was amazed at the flash and flush of energy and youth he had brought to her face. He thought he had never in his life seen so honest, so spiritual a face as that which confronted him; but whether her present expression was one of astonishment or dismay he could not tell.
"You could not have expected him to speak on this subject; and you never had any connection with our trouble? What more did he say?"
"He never really mentioned your name; I only assumed that his reference was to you. He said that he knew a lady who would die to save a—well, he said, a gentleman she loved, but would let even him die rather than swear falsely."
She never flinched. "Was that all?" she asked.
But Durgan was already cut with remorse to think how impertinent his words must sound. "No, that was not all. He asked me to give you a message, to tell you that he would not harm you—that he would rather die than harm you. This was in answer to my suggestion that you would not wish your real name to be known in these parts."
She looked relieved. "I have always believed that he had more good in him than you thought. But tell me all. I'd liefer hear every word, if you please."
"I hope I remember all that he said. I think that was all that I took to be a direct reference to you, Miss Claxton; but what I thought most needful to tell Alden——"
"Yes?" The little word pulsed with restrained excitement.
"I asked the fellow on what defence he relied, and he said what made me think he had the pull of some threat over the person he relied on. He had had a telegram."
"I don't exactly understand, Mr. Durgan."
"Neither do I, I assure you."
"But I mean, what has that to do with Mr. Alden?"
"Oh, I think I assumed that 'Dolphus believed this person to be the criminal, and his address was on the telegram."
"May I ask why you made this assumption?"
"It may have been unwarranted, but taken in connection with his boast that he could establish your entire freedom from blame——" Durgan was floundering in his effort to find words for the very painful subject. He paused, with face red and dew on his brow.
"I guess, Mr. Durgan, if you'll speak quite plainly what you mean, it will be better for us both."
"Why do you include me? Do you know why this boy threatens me, reproaches me, challenges me?"
"Tell me first, Mr. Durgan, what you made out, and what you think this telegram has to do with it?"
"To be plain, I suspect that this man knows who was guilty of the crime for which you were tried, that he is now in communication with him, and I saw an address in the telegram he had received."
"What was the address?"
"'Corner of Beard and 84th Street,' and it was signed 'B. D.'" He told her its contents.
She went into the house and brought out a New York directory a year or two old. "I guess there isn't any such corner," she said, and in a moment she showed him there was not.
"Do you know of anyone who has these initials?"
"I do not."
"If Alden sent a detective to the office where it was received, I wonder if he could find out who sent it?"
"Is it likely that if anyone took the trouble to give a wrong address, they would leave any clew to their whereabouts?"
"Could 'Dolphus give Alden any information of moment?"
"He could give him none that would do anyone any good."
"Might that not be a matter of opinion?"
"I don't see that folks who don't know what they are doing can have a right to an opinion about the results."
There was then a silence. The sun had long set on the valley, but from this eminence its last rays were still seen mingling with a foam of crimson cloud in a vista of the western hills. Both the man and the woman had their faces turned to the great red cloud-flower in which the light of day was declining. The mountains were solemn and tender; the valleys dim and wide. It was not a scene on which the sober mind could gaze without gaining for the hour some reflection of the greatness and earnestness of God.
But the world about could only be environment to their thought, not for a moment its object. Durgan was roused in spirit. The quiescent temper which he had sought to obtain in compensation for a stormy and disappointed youth was lost for the time. This woman, who bore the odium of a cruel and dastardly deed, was still intent on shielding the real doer. Durgan looked at the splendid arena of the mountains and the manifest struggle of light and darkness therein; the many tracks of suspicion in which his thoughts had all day been moving gathered together.
"Miss Claxton, are you willing to tell me all you know about Charlton Beardsley?"
She looked at him for a moment as if trying to read his thoughts, then looked back at the outer world, as if moved by his question only to profound and regretful reverie.
"About Charlton Beardsley I know very little," she said, in a voice touched as with compassion; "very, very little, Mr. Durgan; but I had once occasion to ask your wife something about him, and she told me, I believe truly, that he had been brought up, an orphan, in an English charity school, that he had no relatives that he knew of and no near friends. That was all she could tell me. He was by taste a somewhat solitary mystic, I believe, only sought after by those who had discovered his delusions and wished to be deluded by them. You see, I can easily tell you all I know; it is not much."
Durgan sat watching her, too entirely amazed at both words and manner to find speech. Just so a good woman, treading the violets of some neglected graveyard, might speak of the innocent dead who lay beneath.
There was silence.
Miss Claxton said, "I always like the time just after the sun goes down, Mr. Durgan; I have a fancy it is the time one feels nearest God. I suppose it's only fancy, but it does say in Genesis, you know, that God walked in the garden in the cool of the day."
Then, as darkness grew, and finding that he made no response, she exerted herself and rose to light the lamp.
In the full light she faced him. "Mr. Durgan, I don't wonder you feel the responsibility of the suspicions the negro has put into your mind. I don't blame you, and it's only natural he should like the excitement of talking. It would not be right for me to tell you exactly what I believe he was referring to; but there are some things I can tell you, and I can only pray God to help you believe what I say. I believe it was your wife who sent that telegram; it was, at least, paid for with her money, and it will be her money that will be used freely to get 'Dolphus acquitted. If you pursue the suspicions he has started for you, I don't believe you will make any discovery. But even if you did, what would happen? You would drag your wife's name in the mire; you would"—she paused, and tried to steady her voice. "Oh, Mr. Durgan, think of Bertha; you would break Bertha's heart and mine. You think you understand justice, and that there is someone whom you ought to bring to justice. Justice belongs to God. He alone can mete it out in this world so as to save the soul that has sinned. Are you afraid to leave it to Him? I am not. I have left it to Him for five years, and I am not sorry, but glad. And I entreat you to consider that if you interfere you don't know what you are doing; you may make the worst mistakes. 'Dolphus thinks he knows the name of the person who should be brought to justice; I assure you he does not. I spoke to him on the night Eve died, and found out that he did not. Believe me, Mr. Durgan, I am making no romantic and fantastic sacrifice of myself, as this negro supposes. The truth, were it made public, would be the worst thing for me, as for Bertha, and would bring yourself shame and pain. And it could never be the real, whole truth, for that you could not understand, nor could anyone. I hear their horses on the hill. Please go. Do not let them find you here, as if you had had news of some strange thing. You know nothing, for the thing you think you know is not true. Do nothing, for fear you do harm. You cannot do any good."
"But how can you be sure this sick man will not do the thing you dread?"
"I begged him not to do anything, just as I've begged you. I don't think, anyway, that he will get the chance he reckons on. If he did, I think that when he has to choose between accepting the help that will get him acquitted, if anything will, of the present charge against him, and, as he thinks, righting me, the love of life will be too strong. He will not die on my behalf, even though his intentions are good, as I believe yours are, Mr. Durgan."
Durgan had turned to the door the moment she had asked him to go. He was tarrying on the threshold to ask his last question, to hear her response. When he heard himself, with no unkind intent, naturally linked with the wretched mulatto, his pace was accelerated. With a word of farewell he disappeared into the dusk, hearing the horses arrive at the stables as he went his fugitive way down the familiar trail.