Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Rush slept until two o'clock the next day, after a night passed at theParadise City Hotel in consultation with two of his future partners;they had spent Saturday in the courtroom at Dobton. He had alsodiscovered that the jury enjoyed themselves in the winter garden afterdinner, and by no means in close formation. Although nominally underguard, it would have been a simple matter to pass a note to any one ofthem. Two, he further discovered, had been allowed to telephone and toenter the booth alone. He had been told nothing further of the intentionof Cummack and other friends of his client to "fix" the jury--had,indeed, discouraged such confidences promptly; but he saw that if theenemy desired to employ the methods of corruption they need be no moreintricate than those of the men that had so much more to lose ifdetected.

  The night had been devoted to discussion of the case; he even enjoyed afriendly hour with the district attorney, who notably relaxed onSaturdays after five o'clock; and when Rush awoke on the followingafternoon he immediately resolved to dismiss the whole affair from hisown mind until Monday morning. He would go into the woods and think hisown thoughts. They would be dreary thoughts and imbued no doubt withcynicism, himself the target; and they had passed that problematicalstage in which the mind, no matter how harrowed, sips lingeringly at thevaried banquet of the ego; in fact, Rush's personal problems were almostinvariably settled in his subconsciousness, and rose automatically toconfront the reasoning faculties without an instant's warning. He wastoo impatient for self-analysis; and he was the sum of his acts and ofthe clear mental processes of his conscious life.

  The bright winter sun struck down through the close tree-tops and uponthe brilliant surfaces of a recent fall of snow. The ground was hard andwhite; the branches of the trees were heavy laden. Not a sound broke thewinter stillness but his footsteps on the winter snow. He had put on aheavy white sweater and cap, as he intended to walk for hours, and hisnervous hands were in his pockets. He believed he should have the woodsto himself, for in winter it was the Country Club and the roadhousesthat were patronised on Sundays; and the trolley-car which passed thewood on the line about a quarter of a mile away had, save for himself,been empty.

  His face remained grim and set until he was deep in the woods, and thenit relaxed to a wave of fury and disgust, finally settled into anexpression of profound despair. He was but thirty-two, and the prizes oflife were for such as he, and a week later he would either be in SingSing or bound without hope to a woman for whom his brief sentimentalisedpassion was dust.

  It was not execution he feared, for any clever lawyer could persuade ajury into a certain degree of leniency, but long years in prison for thesake of a dead ideal. In spite of his hard common sense and severelypractical life he would almost have welcomed the exaltation of soulwhich must accompany a great sacrifice impelled by perfect love. But toturn one's back on life for ever and walk deliberately into a dungeon,change one's name for a number and become a thing, for the sake ofbarren honour, to drag out his years with a dead soul, to despisehimself for a fool, too old and too tired to console himself with amemory of a duty well done,--he felt such a sudden disgust for life andfor that ill-regulated product, human nature, that he struck a heavyblow at a tree and brought a shower of snow about his head.

  If he could but have continued to love the woman and accept the grim andbitter fate with joy in his soul! And if only that were the worst! If hecould turn his back on life with no regret save for its lostopportunities for power and fame.

  He paused in his rapid irregular walk and pushed his cap up from hisear. He half swung on his heel; then, his face settling into itsfamiliar lines, he walked slowly toward a faint crackling that hadarrested his attention.

  He came presently upon the glade Alys Crumley had painted in its summermood; the little picture hung facing his bed. The scene was whiteto-day; all the lovely shades of green and gold had been rubbed out andreplaced with the bright sparkle of snow, and the brook was frozen. Butalthough Rush loved the winter woods and responded to their white appealas keenly as to their yearly renewal of verdant youth and gorgeousmaturity, they left him quite unmoved at this moment. Alys Crumley, ashe had half expected, stood in the little dell.

  Her face was more like old ivory than ever against the dazzlingwhiteness of the snow and under her low fur turban. It looked bothpinched and nervous, but she kept her hands in her muff. Nor did Rushremove his from his pockets, although his determination not to betrayhimself was subconscious. At the moment, his mind, conquering a tendencyto race, informed itself merely that even in heavy winter clothes, withbut a deep pink rose in her stole for colour, she managed to look daintyand alluring. It recalled visions of her on summer nights clad in thesoft transparencies of lawn, with ribbons somewhere that always broughtout the strange olive tints of her eyes and hair....

  "I followed you," she said.

  "Did you?"

  "When I saw you pass in the trolley, I guessed. The Gifnings had invitedme to go out to the Club with them. I asked them to put me down at apath near here."

  He made no reply but continued to stare at her, recalling otherpictures,--in the studio, in the green living-room,--marvelling at herendless variety, and not only of effect. Yet she was always the same,surcharged with the magnetism of youth and young womanhood.

  "I--that is--I had made up my mind I must have a talk with you aboutcertain things. You said you might go out to the Club to-day for an houror two of hand-ball, and I had hoped to induce you to come home with mefor supper. But Jack Battle told me that you had telephoned off--andwhen I saw you in the trolley, and caught a glimpse of your face, Iguessed--"

  "Yes?"

  "You make it rather hard."

  "What does it all matter? You are here, and I am glad that you are."

  "Are you? But you intended to avoid me to-day!"

  "I never intended to see you alone again if I could help it."

  "I guessed that too. I met Polly Cummack this morning, and she told meshe spent last evening at the jail and Mrs. Balfame confided to her thatshe had just definitely promised to marry you ... that you had proposedto her on the day of her arrest, and although you had faithfully obeyedher orders and not alluded to the subject since, she had thought it onlykind to put you out of suspense yesterday. She naively added that thesubject had not interested her when you first brought it up; but thatyou had been so wonderful and devoted since.... She means to settlequietly in New York, instead of travelling, so that she can be quitenear you, and she will marry you as soon as the case has been forgottenby the public. Of course, Polly could not keep anything so interesting,and no doubt it is all over town by now."

  Alys spoke steadily, with a faint ironic inflection, and she held herhead very high. But her face grew more pinched, and the delicate pink ofher lips faded.

  "Yes?" He had turned as white as chalk, but there was neither dismay norsarcasm in the hard stare of his eyes. His lips were folded so closelythat the word barely escaped.

  "I am going to say everything I have to say, if you never speak to meagain. I feel as if I were standing on the point of a high rock andevery side led sheer down into an abyss. It doesn't matter in the leastdown which side I fall. There is a certain satisfaction in that. But youshall listen."

  "There is nothing you cannot say to me."

  "And you'll not run away."

  "Oh, no, I'll not run away! I shall never see you again if I can helpit, but now that you are here I shall look at you and listen to thesound of your voice."

  "And to what I have to say. You hate Mrs. Balfame. You are bored todeath with her. You are appalled. You have found her out for what sheis. You are going to marry her out of pity and because you are toohonourable to desert a woman who will always be under a cloud, even ifyou had it in you to break your word; and because you have a twistedromantic notion about being true to an old if mistaken ideal--one of aset that has flourished like hardy old-fashioned annuals under the drysoil of hustle and ambition and devotion to your profession. You hadfallen in
love--or thought you had, which amounts to the same thing forthe moment--after so many years of dry spiritual celibacy, and it hadbeen a wonderful revelation--and an inner revolution that made youimmensely interested in yourself for the first time. You were exalted;you lived for several months at a pitch above the normal, automaticallyregistering other impressions but only half cognisant of them. Andnow--you feel that to the love born in delusion and slain by truth youowe the greatest sacrifice a man can make."

  He had stared at the ground during the first part of her speech, andthen raised his eyes sharply, his glance changing to amazement and aflush mounting to his hair.

  "Oh!" he exclaimed. But he would make no other answer, and once more hedropped his glance to the snow.

  "Are you going to marry her?"

  "If she is acquitted."

  "And if not?" Her voice broke out of its even register.

  He made an abrupt movement, and she cried out:

  "I know! I know! Polly told me--Sam tells her everything. He suspectsyou. He knows that Broderick does. But you don't intend to wait for hisdenunciation. Mrs. Balfame told that to Polly too. You intend to say youdid it. She said she wouldn't let you--oh, wouldn't she!--but you hadtold her that you would make up a plausible story and stick to it. And Iknow that you can't prove an alibi. Tell me,"--she came closer and hervoice was almost threatening,--"do you really intend to take that crimeon your shoulders if she is convicted."

  "Yes."

  "Oh! Oh! Men will be sentimental fools until--well, so long as they areborn of fools and women. We are made all wrong!" She threw her muff onthe ground and beat her hands together. Her eyes were blazing. There wasa curious red glow in their olive depths. "Well, listen to me: You arenot going to do this thing, although I really believe you'd like to doit as a sort of penance. She could not prevent such a monstroussacrifice if she would, but I can. Just bear that in mind. If you comeforward with any such insane proposition, I will make a fool of youbefore all the world. If Mrs. Balfame is acquitted, well and good; butif she is not, then I'll betray a confidence and run the risk ofkilling some one myself--but I'll get the truth. Just remember that, andkeep off the witness-stand."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I know where to get the truth."

  "You mean that Dr. Anna thinks Mrs. Balfame did it--that Mrs. Balfameconfessed to her and that you can make the poor woman betray her friendwhile she is still too weak to resist. Well, you are all wrong. I knowthat Mrs. Balfame did not kill Balfame. If you want the reason for myknowledge,--and I know I can trust you,--Mrs. Balfame was out thatnight, and she did take a revolver and fire it. I found it in the houseon the night following her arrest. It was a thirty-eight. There was onebullet missing. It was found in the tree. Balfame was killed by aforty-one. She did not go out to shoot Balfame, but because she thoughtshe saw a burglar in the grove. Her revolver went off accidentally--andshe is the best shot out at the Club. But you will readily understand myreasons for suppressing these facts."

  Alys had turned her profile and was staring at a tree whose limbscreaked now and again with their weight of snow, sending down a powderyshower. Her thick short lashes were almost together before a gleamingline of olive.

  "Oh! Who was her confederate?"

  "She hasn't the least idea as to the identity of the person beside her.It was dark, and she was too much excited. Naturally, she would be veryglad to know."

  "Well, suppose we dismiss that part of it. We should never get anywhere.Only--don't take the stand and make a dramatic confession."

  "Dramatic?" Once more the red tide rose. His blue eyes snapped.

  "Melodramatic would perhaps be the better word. Sarah and I are hot onthe trail of the right word. But tell me honestly--shouldn't you feelrather a fool? It is such a very theatric--stagey--thing to do."

  "Oh!" He wheeled about and kicked a fallen log. "Do you suppose I havegiven a thought to that aspect of it?"

  "No, more is the pity, but as you have a good sense of humour, I ratherwonder at it. However--these are not the only things I followed you intothe woods to say."

  "You had it in your mind, then, to find out if what Mrs. Balfame toldMrs. Cummack was true--that I purposed to free her one way or another?"

  "Yes. I merely waited for the lead. I told you in the beginning that Idid not care what I might confess to, or how angry I made you. What doesit matter?"

  "You cannot make me angry, although there are some things I cannotdiscuss with you."

  "Of course not. Let us ignore Possible Sacrifice Number Two, and assumethat Mrs. Balfame is acquitted,--which no doubt will be the case; feware worrying; and further assume that you will marry her; that she willmarry you is the way she put it, not being an artist in words. Once morewe will dismiss both subjects. Yes?"

  She was stooping to recover her muff, and he noticed that her hands wereshaking and that the dusky pink was in her cheeks for the first time.

  "I am only too ready. But--there is little else for us to talk about!"

  "Yes, there is! When people are on their deathbeds they can afford tobe truthful, and you have dug your grave and mine."

  She was erect once more and she looked at him steadily, although herbreath was short and her cheeks blazing.

  "What do you mean by that?" His eyes no longer looked like blue steel.They were flashing, and a curious wave of mobility passed over his face.

  "I mean that you love me now. I think you always loved me--when we spentso many hours together in perfect companionship--when you found so muchin me that responded to so many of your own needs. But for the timebeing this was only a surface impression. It was unable to strike downto--to your soul, because between your outer and inner vision was thedelusion. You had cherished some sort of ideal since boyhood, and whenfor the first time in your busy life you met a woman who seemed tomaterialise it--you never once had a half-hour's conversation withher!--you automatically rose to the opportunity to discharge a youthfulobligation. Isn't that true?"

  He would not answer, and she continued:

  "You passed me over because you had to be rid of the delusion first, bagand baggage. There is only one way to get rid of an old delusion likethat, and unconsciously you took it! The pity of it is, in our case,that you compromised yourself so promptly, instead of waiting--well, forten weeks!"

  "I had already asked Mrs. Balfame to get a divorce and marry me."

  "Oh! That night you walked home with her from Dr. Anna's cottage?"

  "You saw us? Yes, that was the time."

  "The first time you had ever talked alone with her? I know that youdined there often, but didn't Dave usually do the talking?"

  "Yes."

  "And Mrs. Balfame smiled like St. Cecilia and attended to your wants."

  "Oh!"

  "It was like you to think you couldn't go back on even an ElsinoreAvenue flirtation. But once more--it is a terrible pity that you did notdelay your formal offer for ten weeks. Then you would have buried thelast and the supreme folly of your youth--with a sigh perhaps, but youwould have buried it. Isn't that true?"

  "It is true that something incredibly youthful seems to have persistedin me beyond its proper limits, and then to have died abruptly. Godknows I have no youth in me to-day."

  "That may well be, but it need not have been. Youth does not die withthe earlier illusions. If all had gone well, you would have been reborninto a saner and more conscious youth. Tell me--" Her voice trembled,but she moved forward resolutely and laid her muff against his chest; hecould feel the working of her hands, and eyes and cheeks betrayed theexcitement that pride still suppressed. "Tell me,--if you had waited, ifyou could have decently buried that old illusion and forgotten--and--andmarried me,--should you have felt very old?"

  "I should have felt immortal."

  He caught her hands from her muff and flung them about his neck andlifted her from the ground and kissed her as if they both stood on thepinnacle and had but a moment before plunging down to mortal death.

  When he r
eleased her a trifle, his face was illuminated. It no longerlooked preternaturally strong; neither did it look as young as she hadseen it look in moments of mental relaxation.

  "Ah!" she whispered. "This is the fusing, not when that old illusiondied."

  The deep flush ebbed out of his face, leaving it grey, but he did notrelax the hard pressure of his arms. "Of what use," he asked bitterly,"when we have only to-day?"

  "It is something to realise all of oneself if only for an hour. And youhave given me my supreme hour. That was my right, for I went down intosuch depths as you have no knowledge of; and if I struggled out of themalone, and always in terror of surrender and demoralisation at the lastmoment, I have my claim on your help now, for the future is something Ihave never dared to face. I guessed before Polly told me--oh, I guessed!I knew you so well. In dreams, perhaps,--who knows?--our minds may havebecome one. When I came up out of--got past the worst, it seemed to methat I came into an extraordinary understanding of you. I can bearanything now. In a way, you will always be mine. The life of theimagination must have its satisfactions. There are worse things thanliving alone."

  She drew down his head, but this time she put her lips to his ear.

  "Now I am going to tell you a terrible secret," she said.