“Mr. Harwell has notes and memoranda in plenty,” she exclaimed, “and can give you all the information necessary. You will have no difficulty; indeed, you will not.”
“But cannot Mr. Harwell himself do all that is requisite? He seems to be a clever and diligent young man.”
But she shook her head. “He thinks he can; but I know uncle never trusted him with the composition of a single sentence.”
“But perhaps he will not be pleased,—Mr. Harwell, I mean—with the intrusion of a stranger into his work.”
She opened her eyes with astonishment. “That makes no difference,” she cried. “Mr. Harwell is in my pay, and has nothing to say about it. But he will not object. I have already consulted him, and he expresses himself as satisfied with the arrangement.”
“Very well,” said I; “then I will promise to consider the subject. I can at any rate look over the manuscript and give you my opinion of its condition.”
“Oh, thank you,” said she, with the prettiest gesture of satisfaction. “How kind you are, and what can I ever do to repay you? But would you like to see Mr. Harwell himself?” and she moved towards the door; but suddenly paused, whispering, with a short shudder of remembrance: “He is in the library; do you mind?”
Crushing down the sick qualm that arose at the mention of that spot, I replied in the negative.
“The papers are all there, and he says he can work better in his old place than anywhere else; but if you wish, I can call him down.”
But I would not listen to this, and myself led the way to the foot of the stairs.
“I have sometimes thought I would lock up that room,” she hurriedly observed; “but something restrains me. I can no more do so than I can leave this house; a power beyond myself forces me to confront all its horrors. And yet I suffer continually from terror. Sometimes, in the darkness of the night—But I will not distress you. I have already said too much; come,” and with a sudden lift of the head she mounted the stairs.
Mr. Harwell was seated, when we entered that fatal room, in the one chair of all others I expected to see unoccupied; and as I beheld his meagre figure bending where such a little while before his eyes had encountered the outstretched form of his murdered employer, I could not but marvel over the unimaginativeness of the man who, in the face of such memories, could not only appropriate that very spot for his own use, but pursue his avocations there with so much calmness and evident precision. But in another moment I discovered that the disposition of the light in the room made that one seat the only desirable one for his purpose; and instantly my wonder changed to admiration at this quiet surrender of personal feeling to the requirements of the occasion.
He looked up mechanically as we came in, but did not rise, his countenance wearing the absorbed expression which bespeaks the preoccupied mind.
“He is utterly oblivious,” Mary whispered; “that is a way of his. I doubt if he knows who or what it is that has disturbed him.” And, advancing into the room, she passed across his line of vision, as if to call attention to herself, and said: “I have brought Mr. Raymond up-stairs to see you, Mr. Harwell. He has been so kind as to accede to my wishes in regard to the completion of the manuscript now before you.”
Slowly Mr. Harwell rose, wiped his pen, and put it away; manifesting, however, a reluctance in doing so that proved this interference to be in reality anything but agreeable to him. Observing this, I did not wait for him to speak, but took up the pile of manuscript, arranged in one mass on the table, saying:
“This seems to be very clearly written; if you will excuse me, I will glance over it and thus learn something of its general character.”
He bowed, uttered a word or so of acquiescence, then, as Mary left the room, awkwardly reseated himself, and took up his pen.
Instantly the manuscript and all connected with it vanished from my thoughts; and Eleanore, her situation, and the mystery surrounding this family, returned upon me with renewed force. Looking the secretary steadily in the face, I remarked:
“I am very glad of this opportunity of seeing you a moment alone, Mr. Harwell, if only for the purpose of saying–”
“Anything in regard to the murder?”
“Yes,” I began.
“Then you must pardon me,” he respectfully but firmly replied. “It is a disagreeable subject which I cannot bear to think of, much less discuss.”
Disconcerted and, what was more, convinced of the impossibility of obtaining any information from this man, I abandoned the attempt; and, taking up the manuscript once more, endeavored to master in some small degree the nature of its contents. Succeeding beyond my hopes, I opened a short conversation with him in regard to it, and finally, coming to the conclusion I could accomplish what Miss Leavenworth desired, left him and descended again to the reception room.
When, an hour or so later, I withdrew from the house, it was with the feeling that one obstacle had been removed from my path. If I failed in what I had undertaken, it would not be from lack of opportunity of studying the inmates of this dwelling.
XVI. THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE
“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven.”
All’s Well that Ends Well.
THE next morning’s Tribune contained a synopsis of Mr. Leavenworth’s will. Its provisions were a surprise to me; for, while the bulk of his immense estate was, according to the general understanding, bequeathed to his niece, Mary, it appeared by a codicil, attached to his will some five years before, that Eleanore was not entirely forgotten, she having been made the recipient of a legacy which, if not large, was at least sufficient to support her in comfort. After listening to the various comments of my associates on the subject, I proceeded to the house of Mr. Gryce, in obedience to his request to call upon him as soon as possible after the publication of the will.
“Good-morning,” he remarked as I entered, but whether addressing me or the frowning top of the desk before which he was sitting it would be difficult to say. “Won’t you sit?” nodding with a curious back movement of his head towards a chair in his rear.
I drew up the chair to his side. “I am curious to know,” I remarked, “what you have to say about this will, and its probable effect upon the matters we have in hand.”
“What is your own idea in regard to it?”
“Well, I think upon the whole it will make but little difference in public opinion. Those who thought Eleanore guilty before will feel that they possess now greater cause than ever to doubt her innocence; while those who have hitherto hesitated to suspect her will not consider that the comparatively small amount bequeathed her would constitute an adequate motive for so great a crime.”
“You have heard men talk; what seems to be the general opinion among those you converse with?”
“That the motive of the tragedy will be found in the partiality shown in so singular a will, though how, they do not profess to know.”
Mr. Gryce suddenly became interested in one of the small drawers before him.
“And all this has not set you thinking?” said he.
“Thinking,” returned I. “I don’t know what you mean. I am sure I have done nothing but think for the last three days. I–”
“Of course—of course,” he cried. “I didn’t mean to say anything disagreeable. And so you have seen Mr. Clavering?”
“Just seen him; no more.”
“And are you going to assist Mr. Harwell in finishing Mr. Leavenworth’s book?”
“How did you learn that?”
He only smiled.
“Yes,” said I; “Miss Leavenworth has requested me to do her that little favor.”
“She is a queenly creature!” he exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm. Then, with an instant return to his business-like tone: “You are going to have opportunities, Mr. Raymond. Now there are two things I want you to find out; first, what is the connection between these ladies and Mr. Clavering–”
“There is a connection, then?”
“Undoubtedly. And secondly, what is the cause of the unfriendly feeling which evidently exists between the cousins.”
I drew back and pondered the position offered me. A spy in a fair woman’s house! How could I reconcile it with my natural instincts as a gentleman?
“Cannot you find some one better adapted to learn these secrets for you?” I asked at length. “The part of a spy is anything but agreeable to my feelings, I assure you.”
Mr. Gryce’s brows fell.
“I will assist Mr. Harwell in his efforts to arrange Mr. Leavenworth’s manuscript for the press,” I said; “I will give Mr. Clavering an opportunity to form my acquaintance; and I will listen, if Miss Leavenworth chooses to make me her confidant in any way. But any hearkening at doors, surprises, unworthy feints or ungentlemanly subterfuges, I herewith disclaim as outside of my province; my task being to find out what I can in an open way, and yours to search into the nooks and corners of this wretched business.”
“In other words, you are to play the hound, and I the mole; just so, I know what belongs to a gentleman.”
“And now,” said I, “what news of Hannah?”
He shook both hands high in the air. “None.”
I cannot say I was greatly surprised, that evening, when, upon descending from an hour’s labor with Mr. Harwell, I encountered Miss Leavenworth standing at the foot of the stairs. There had been something in her bearing, the night before, which prepared me for another interview this evening, though her manner of commencing it was a surprise. “Mr. Raymond,” said she, with an air of marked embarrassment, “I want to ask you a question. I believe you to be a good man, and I know you will answer me conscientiously. As a brother would,” she added, lifting her eyes for a moment to my face. “I know it will sound strange; but remember, I have no adviser but you, and I must ask some one. Mr. Raymond, do you think a person could do something that was very wrong, and yet grow to be thoroughly good afterwards?”
“Certainly,” I replied; “if he were truly sorry for his fault.”
“But say it was more than a fault; say it was an actual harm; would not the memory of that one evil hour cast a lasting shadow over one’s life?”
“That depends upon the nature of the harm and its effect upon others. If one had irreparably injured a fellow-being, it would be hard for a person of sensitive nature to live a happy life afterwards; though the fact of not living a happy life ought to be no reason why one should not live a good life.”
“But to live a good life would it be necessary to reveal the evil you had done? Cannot one go on and do right without confessing to the world a past wrong?”
“Yes, unless by its confession he can in some way make reparation.”
My answer seemed to trouble her. Drawing back, she stood for one moment in a thoughtful attitude before me, her beauty shining with almost a statuesque splendor in the glow of the porcelain-shaded lamp at her side. Nor, though she presently roused herself, leading the way into the drawing-room with a gesture that was allurement itself, did she recur to this topic again; but rather seemed to strive, in the conversation that followed, to make me forget what had already passed between us. That she did not succeed, was owing to my intense and unfailing interest in her cousin.
As I descended the stoop, I saw Thomas, the butler, leaning over the area gate. Immediately I was seized with an impulse to interrogate him in regard to a matter which had more or less interested me ever since the inquest; and that was, who was the Mr. Robbins who had called upon Eleanore the night of the murder? But Thomas was decidedly uncommunicative. He remembered such a person called, but could not describe his looks any further than to say that he was not a small man.
I did not press the matter.
XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES
“Vous regardez une etoile pour deux motifs, parce qu’elle est lumineuse et parce qu’elle est impenetrable. Vous avez aupres de vous un plus doux rayonnement et un pas grand mystere, la femme.”
Les Miserables.
AND now followed days in which I seemed to make little or no progress. Mr. Clavering, disturbed perhaps by my presence, forsook his usual haunts, thus depriving me of all opportunity of making his acquaintance in any natural manner, while the evenings spent at Miss Leavenworth’s were productive of little else than constant suspense and uneasiness.
The manuscript required less revision than I supposed. But, in the course of making such few changes as were necessary, I had ample opportunity of studying the character of Mr. Harwell. I found him to be neither more nor less than an excellent amanuensis. Stiff, unbending, and sombre, but true to his duty and reliable in its performance, I learned to respect him, and even to like him; and this, too, though I saw the liking was not reciprocated, whatever the respect may have been. He never spoke of Eleanore Leavenworth or, indeed, mentioned the family or its trouble in any way; till I began to feel that all this reticence had a cause deeper than the nature of the man, and that if he did speak, it would be to some purpose. This suspicion, of course, kept me restlessly eager in his presence. I could not forbear giving him sly glances now and then, to see how he acted when he believed himself unobserved; but he was ever the same, a passive, diligent, unexcitable worker.
This continual beating against a stone wall, for thus I regarded it, became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary unapproachable—how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had with Mary did not help matters. Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish, grateful, appealing, everything at once, and never twice the same, I learned to dread, even while I coveted, an interview. She appeared to be passing through some crisis which occasioned her the keenest suffering. I have seen her, when she thought herself alone, throw up her hands with the gesture which we use to ward off a coming evil or shut out some hideous vision. I have likewise beheld her standing with her proud head abased, her nervous hands drooping, her whole form sinking and inert, as if the pressure of a weight she could neither upbear nor cast aside had robbed her even of the show of resistance. But this was only once. Ordinarily she was at least stately in her trouble. Even when the softest appeal came into her eyes she stood erect, and retained her expression of conscious power. Even the night she met me in the hall, with feverish cheeks and lips trembling with eagerness, only to turn and fly again without giving utterance to what she had to say, she comported herself with a fiery dignity that was well nigh imposing.
That all this meant something, I was sure; and so I kept my patience alive with the hope that some day she would make a revelation. Those quivering lips would not always remain closed; the secret involving Eleanore’s honor and happiness would be divulged by this restless being, if by no one else. Nor was the memory of that extraordinary, if not cruel, accusation I had heard her make enough to destroy this hope—for hope it had grown to be—so that I found myself insensibly shortening my time with Mr. Harwell in the library, and extending my tete-a-tete visits with Mary in the reception room, till the imperturbable secretary was forced to complain that he was often left for hours without work.
But, as I say, days passed, and a second Monday evening came round without seeing me any further advanced upon the problem I had set myself to solve than when I first started upon it two weeks before. The subject of the murder had not even been broached; nor was Hannah spoken of, though I observed the papers were not allowed to languish an instant upon the stoop; mistress and servants betraying equal interest in their contents. All this was strange to me. It was as if you saw a group of human beings eating, drinking, and sleeping upon the sides of a volcano hot with a late eruption and trembling with the birth of a new one. I longed to break this silence as we shiver glass: by shouting the name of Eleanore through those gilded rooms and satin-draped vestibules. But this Monday evening I was in a calmer mood. I was determined to expect nothing from my visits to Mary Leavenworth’s house; and entered it upon the eve in question with an equanimity such as I had not experienced since the first day I passed under its unhappy portals.
But when, upon nearing the reception room, I saw Mary pacing the floor with the air of one who is restlessly awaiting something or somebody, I took a sudden resolution, and, advancing towards her, said: “Do I see you alone, Miss Leavenworth?”
She paused in her hurried action, blushed and bowed, but, contrary to her usual custom, did not bid me enter.
“Will it be too great an intrusion on my part, if I venture to come in?” I asked.
Her glance flashed uneasily to the clock, and she seemed about to excuse herself, but suddenly yielded, and, drawing up a chair before the fire, motioned me towards it. Though she endeavored to appear calm, I vaguely felt I had chanced upon her in one of her most agitated moods, and that I had only to broach the subject I had in mind to behold her haughtiness disappear before me like melting snow. I also felt that I had but few moments in which to do it. I accordingly plunged immediately into the subject.
“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, “in obtruding upon you to-night, I have a purpose other than that of giving myself a pleasure. I have come to make an appeal.”
Instantly I saw that in some way I had started wrong. “An appeal to make to me?” she asked, breathing coldness from every feature of her face.
“Yes,” I went on, with passionate recklessness. “Balked in every other endeavor to learn the truth, I have come to you, whom I believe to be noble at the core, for that help which seems likely to fail us in every other direction: for the word which, if it does not absolutely save your cousin, will at least put us upon the track of what will.”
“I do not understand what you mean,” she protested, slightly shrinking.
“Miss Leavenworth,” I pursued, “it is needless for me to tell you in what position your cousin stands. You, who remember both the form and drift of the questions put to her at the inquest, comprehend it all without any explanation from me. But what you may not know is this, that unless she is speedily relieved from the suspicion which, justly or not, has attached itself to her name, the consequences which such suspicion entails must fall upon her, and–”
“Good God!” she cried; “you do not mean she will be–”
“Subject to arrest? Yes.”
It was a blow. Shame, horror, and anguish were in every line of her white face. “And all because of that key!” she murmured.
“Key? How did you know anything about a key?”
“Why,” she cried, flushing painfully; “I cannot say; didn’t you tell me?”
“No,” I returned.
“The papers, then?”
“The papers have never mentioned it.”
She grew more and more agitated. “I thought every one knew. No, I did not, either,” she avowed, in a sudden burst of shame and penitence. “I knew it was a secret; but—oh, Mr. Raymond, it was Eleanore herself who told me.”
“Eleanore?”
“Yes, that last evening she was here; we were together in the drawing-room.”
“What did she tell?”
“That the key to the library had been seen in her possession.”
I could scarcely conceal my incredulity. Eleanore, conscious of the suspicion with which her cousin regarded her, inform that cousin of a fact calculated to add weight to that suspicion? I could not believe this.
“But you knew it?” Mary went on. “I have revealed nothing I ought to have kept secret?”
“No,” said I; “and, Miss Leavenworth, it is this thing which makes your cousin’s position absolutely dangerous. It is a fact that, left unexplained, must ever link her name with infamy; a bit of circumstantial evidence no sophistry can smother, and no denial obliterate. Only her hitherto spotless reputation, and the efforts of one who, notwithstanding appearances, believes in her innocence, keeps her so long from the clutch of the officers of justice. That key, and the silence preserved by her in regard to it, is sinking her slowly into a pit from which the utmost endeavors of her best friends will soon be inadequate to extricate her.”
“And you tell me this–”
“That you may have pity on the poor girl, who will not have pity on herself, and by the explanation of a few circumstances, which cannot be mysteries to you, assist in bringing her from under the dreadful shadow that threatens to overwhelm her.”
“And would you insinuate, sir,” she cried, turning upon me with a look of great anger, “that I know any more than you do of this matter? that I possess any knowledge which I have not already made public concerning the dreadful tragedy which has transformed our home into a desert, our existence into a lasting horror? Has the blight of suspicion fallen upon me, too; and have you come to accuse me in my own house–”
“Miss Leavenworth,” I entreated; “calm yourself. I accuse you of nothing. I only desire you to enlighten me as to your cousin’s probable motive for this criminating silence. You cannot be ignorant of it. You are her cousin, almost her sister, have been at all events her daily companion for years, and must know for whom or for what she seals her lips, and conceals facts which, if known, would direct suspicion to the real criminal—that is, if you really believe what you have hitherto stated, that your cousin is an innocent woman.”
She not making any answer to this, I rose and confronted her. “Miss Leavenworth, do you believe your cousin guiltless of this crime, or not?”
“Guiltless? Eleanore? Oh! my God; if all the world were only as innocent as she!”
“Then,” said I, “you must likewise believe that if she refrains from speaking in regard to matters which to ordinary observers ought to be explained, she does it only from motives of kindness towards one less guiltless than herself.”
“What? No, no; I do not say that. What made you think of any such explanation?”
“The action itself. With one of Eleanore’s character, such conduct as hers admits of no other construction. Either she is mad, or she is shielding another at the expense of herself.”
Mary’s lip, which had trembled, slowly steadied itself. “And whom have you settled upon, as the person for whom Eleanore thus sacrifices herself?”
“Ah,” said I, “there is where I seek assistance from you. With your knowledge of her history–”
But Mary Leavenworth, sinking haughtily back into her chair, stopped me with a quiet gesture. “I beg your pardon,” said she; “but you make a mistake. I know little or nothing of Eleanore’s personal feelings. The mystery must be solved by some one besides me.”
I changed my tactics.
“When Eleanore confessed to you that the missing key had been seen in her possession, did she likewise inform you where she obtained it, and for what reason she was hiding it?”
“No.”
“Merely told you the fact, without any explanation?”
“Yes.”
“Was not that a strange piece of gratuitous information for her to give one who, but a few hours before, had accused her to the face of committing a deadly crime?”
“What do you mean?”’ she asked, her voice suddenly sinking.
“You will not deny that you were once, not only ready to believe her guilty, but that you actually charged her with having perpetrated this crime.”
“Explain yourself!” she cried.
“Miss Leavenworth, do you not remember what you said in that room upstairs, when you were alone with your cousin on the morning of the inquest, just before Mr. Gryce and myself entered your presence?”
Her eyes did not fall, but they filled with sudden terror.
“You heard?” she whispered.
“I could not help it. I was just outside the door, and–”
“What did you hear?”
I told her.
“And Mr. Gryce?”
“He was at my side.”
It seemed as if her eyes would devour my face. “Yet nothing was said when you came in?”
“No.”
“You, however, have never forgotten it?”
“How could we, Miss Leavenworth?”
Her head fell forward in her hands, and for one wild moment she seemed lost in despair. Then she roused, and desperately exclaimed:
“And that is why you come here to-night. With that sentence written upon your heart, you invade my presence, torture me with questions–”
“Pardon me,” I broke in; “are my questions such as you, with reasonable regard for the honor of one with whom you are accustomed to associate, should hesitate to answer? Do I derogate from my manhood in asking you how and why you came to make an accusation of so grave a nature, at a time when all the circumstances of the case were freshly before you, only to insist fully as strongly upon your cousin’s innocence when you found there was even more cause for your imputation than you had supposed?”
She did not seem to hear me. “Oh, my cruel fate!” she murmured. “Oh, my cruel fate!”
“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, rising, and taking my stand before her; “although there is a temporary estrangement between you and your cousin, you cannot wish to seem her enemy. Speak, then; let me at least know the name of him for whom she thus immolates herself. A hint from you–”
But rising, with a strange look, to her feet, she interrupted me with a stern remark: “If you do not know, I cannot inform you; do not ask me, Mr. Raymond.” And she glanced at the clock for the second time.
I took another turn.
“Miss Leavenworth, you once asked me if a person who had committed a wrong ought necessarily to confess it; and I replied no, unless by the confession reparation could be made. Do you remember?”
Her lips moved, but no words issued from them.
“I begin to think,” I solemnly proceeded, following the lead of her emotion, “that confession is the only way out of this difficulty: that only by the words you can utter Eleanore can be saved from the doom that awaits her. Will you not then show yourself a true woman by responding to my earnest entreaties?”
I seemed to have touched the right chord; for she trembled, and a look of wistfulness filled her eyes. “Oh, if I could!” she murmured.
“And why can you not? You will never be happy till you do. Eleanore persists in silence; but that is no reason why you should emulate her example. You only make her position more doubtful by it.”
“I know it; but I cannot help myself. Fate has too strong a hold upon me; I cannot break away.”
“That is not true. Any one can escape from bonds imaginary as yours.”
“No, no,” she protested; “you do not understand.”
“I understand this: that the path of rectitude is a straight one, and that he who steps into devious byways is going astray.”
A flicker of light, pathetic beyond description, flashed for a moment across her face; her throat rose as with one wild sob; her lips opened; she seemed yielding, when—A sharp ring at the front door-bell!
“Oh,” she cried, sharply turning, “tell him I cannot see him; tell him–”
“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, taking her by both hands, “never mind the door; never mind anything but this. I have asked you a question which involves the mystery of this whole affair; answer me, then, for your soul’s sake; tell me, what the unhappy circumstances were which could induce you—”
But she tore her hands from mine. “The door!” she cried; “it will open, and—”
Stepping into the hall, I met Thomas coming up the basement stairs. “Go back,” said I; “I will call you when you are wanted.”
With a bow he disappeared.
“You expect me to answer,” she exclaimed, when I re-entered, “now, in a moment? I cannot.”
“But–”
“Impossible!” fastening her gaze upon the front door.
“Miss Leavenworth!”
She shuddered.
“I fear the time will never come, if you do not speak now.”
“Impossible,” she reiterated.
Another twang at the bell.
“You hear!” said she.
I went into the hall and called Thomas. “You may open the door now,” said I, and moved to return to her side.
But, with a gesture of command, she pointed up-stairs. “Leave me!” and her glance passed on to Thomas, who stopped where he was.
“I will see you again before I go,” said I, and hastened up-stairs.
Thomas opened the door. “Is Miss Leavenworth in?” I heard a rich, tremulous voice inquire.
“Yes, sir,” came in the butler’s most respectful and measured accents, and, leaning over the banisters I beheld, to my amazement, the form of Mr. Clavering enter the front hall and move towards the reception room.