The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 27

Elizabeth's voice faltered, she raised her eyes in a half conscious appeal. It seemed to her for the moment as if the agony of that confession must make amends to some extent even for such deceit as hers. But Gerard's face did not soften. Her whole conduct seemed to him monstrous, incredible. He could not accept as atonement this tardy repentance, the fact that she had told him the truth--at the eleventh hour.

The thought occurred to him, which she had herself suggested, earlier in the evening. He remembered chance gossip of the Neighborhood about her antecedents, listened to vaguely even before he knew her, and haunting him afterwards in the first days of their acquaintance, till love had made him cast it aside, as a thing of no importance. Now it recurred to his mind as the only explanation--he did not accept it as an excuse--of this weakness which seemed otherwise inexplicable. No doubt there must be, he told himself, in the child of such parents,--it would be strange if there were not--some hereditary taint, some lack of moral fibre, which curiously imperceptible in other ways, must needs a.s.sert itself in any great moral crisis. The thought, which might have softened him, seemed at the time only to steel him the more against her.

He fell again to pacing up and down, thinking it over; seeing past incidents afresh in the merciless light of his present knowledge; recalling this or that insignificant circ.u.mstance which at the time had aroused, unreasonably as it seemed, his distrust;--her occasional uneasiness and distress, that air she had of being on her guard, the look in the picture--ah, he understood it now! It was the shadow of falsehood, which for months had clouded her every thought and action.

What a fool he had been, he reflected fiercely--how he had allowed himself to be deceived--made an easy prey by the extent of his infatuation--how she had juggled with the truth, telling him the worst of herself in such a way that he had believed, all the more determinedly, the reverse.

He stopped at last his restless pacing to and fro and paused beside her. The fierce tide of anger, the first bitterness of his disillusion, had subsided. He was cold, with the coldness of despair.

His face was worn and haggard, as if from the suffering of years, but it was set in rigid lines, from which all feeling seemed to have vanished. His eyes were dry and hard.

"I think," he said, and there was a dull, toneless sound in his voice; he spoke slowly, like one who either weighed his words with great care, or was afraid to trust himself too far, "I think there had better be an end to this. I should only say, if I said all I thought, things I might afterwards--regret; and I wouldn't"--his voice broke ever so little--"G.o.d knows I don't want to be unjust! But I cannot"--he let his hand fall with a look of dull despair--"I _cannot_ understand how you have kept this from me all these months!"

He paused, as if expecting an answer, an excuse, perhaps of some sort; but she said nothing, and he went on, after a moment, his voice growing more uncertain: "It isn't so much the marriage--that could be, perhaps"--He hesitated, his heavy brows drawn together frowning--"The man must be an absolute wretch," he said, suddenly, "there must be--for your sake I hope so--some way out"----

"Oh, for me"--she made a little gesture of utter carelessness--"for me it can make no difference--now."

"For myself," he went on, not heeding her words, perhaps not fully grasping their meaning, "I couldn't--whether the marriage held or not--I couldn't forgive--being so deceived."

He stopped and again seemed to expect some protest, but she only repeated, in a dull voice of complete acquiescence: "No, I didn't think you could forgive--being so deceived"----

"Even if I could forgive," he said, "I could never trust"----

"No," she repeated, "you could never trust." Her face was colorless, but impa.s.sive, as if it had been turned to stone, her voice was almost as firm as his. "You are quite right," she said. "I deserve all the harsh things you could say. It is kind of you to say--so few. Perhaps, later, you'll judge me more gently; but--I couldn't expect it now. And so"--she faltered and caught her breath, as if her strength failed her--"and so good-bye," she said at last. "I think it can only hurt us both to--discuss this any longer."

Her calmness stunned him. He had been prepared for tears--excuses--but she offered no defence and made no effort to arouse his pity. There was a dignity in her complete submission. He looked at her, his face working with varied emotions; and then he said "Good-bye" mechanically and took her hand for an instant. It was icy cold and lay impa.s.sively in his. He dropped it and moved towards the door, as if under some spell, deprived of all capacity for thought or feeling. Involuntarily, her eyes followed him. Was this the parting, after so many months? But at the door he paused, he looked back. The firelight played on her hair, on her white dress, the drooping lines of her slender form, the deathly pallor of her face, the despair in her eyes.... He softened, perhaps, or it might be that the mere physical spell of her beauty held him, even when all that made the glory of his love, had been rudely shattered. He came back, caught her in his arms, and pressed burning kisses on her lips. She trembled as if they had been blows, but she made no effort to free herself. And then, as if ashamed of his weakness, he let her go and went out hastily. A moment later she heard the front door close, with a dull sound that echoed through the quiet rooms.

She stood where he had left her, staring blankly about her at the familiar objects which seemed to have acquired, during the last hour, an air of change, of unreality. What had happened, what had she done?

Awhile ago she had been borne up by a courage that seemed almost heroic, a sense of moral victory. Now that had failed her. She was simply a woman despised and heart-broken, who by her own suicidal act had destroyed her happiness.

"How--how can I bear it?" she broke out, at last, fiercely, and sinking down on the hearth-rug, she lay prostrate, her face hidden, while her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs. The old Dutch clock ticked softly, pitifully, in the silence; the fire flickered and died away. But outside in the street spasmodic whistles kept on blowing, and belated wayfarers still bade each other, with laughter and jollity, "Happy New Year."

_Chapter XXIX_

It was eight days later. Elizabeth's trouble and the New Year were both a week old. She had lived through the time somehow or another, had even faced those smaller trials which follow in the wake of any great catastrophe. She had told the whole truth to her aunts--it was only less hard than telling Gerard--she had written to her friends to announce the breaking of her engagement, and had countermanded the orders for her trousseau. These affairs disposed of, she was ready to face the world with such strength as she had left.

For Gerard the situation was simpler. He had taken at once his man's way out of it, and pacing the deck of an ocean steamer, he tried to distract his mind and forget his trouble in plans for extensive travel and scientific research. They had been his resource once before, when a woman had disappointed him.

He had not seen Elizabeth again. He dreaded, perhaps, to trust himself, or perhaps his anger was still too great. But he had written before he left to her aunts, urging them to consult a lawyer and take steps at once to free her from the results of her rash marriage. To himself, he justified this weakness--if it were weakness--by the thought of Halleck's baseness. "I could not bear to think of her as his wife," he said to himself, "a fellow who could give her up for money!"

Upon Elizabeth's aunts the affair had come like a thunderbolt. They were quite unprepared for it, though many suspicious circ.u.mstances--the mystery as to Elizabeth's jewels, her own occasional words--might have suggested the idea that something was amiss. But absorbed in their delight in the engagement, their affection for Gerard, they had not the heart to formulate any doubt they might have felt. Now, in the first shock of their awakening, they remembered unwillingly the same facts of family history which had occurred to Gerard. What could they have expected from Malvina's child but deceit, folly and disgrace? But they were gentle souls, and had no reproaches for Elizabeth, only a silent, sorrowful pity, which hurt the girl's proud spirit more than the sharpest words.

She was lingering that morning, pale and languid, over her untasted breakfast, and Miss Cornelia, from behind the coffee-urn, stole anxious glances towards her, all sense of injury lost in her distress over the girl's wretched looks, and fear that she was going to be ill.

They two were alone, Miss Joanna having already started to do her marketing, when the maid entered with the belated newspaper. Miss Cornelia held out her delicate, tremulous hand for it, nervously apprehensive of that paragraph which no doubt in the society columns, announced that the engagement between Miss Van Vorst and Mr. Gerard had been broken "by mutual consent."

It was not this notice which met her eyes, but some exciting head-lines on the first page which had already attracted the attention of the cook and the housemaid.

"Elizabeth," said Miss Cornelia, in a stifled voice. "Elizabeth--what is this?"

Elizabeth raised her vacant eyes, and saw Miss Cornelia deathly white and staring in horror at the paper. "Is it?" she said. "It must be.

What a dispensation! So young, too."

"Auntie," said Elizabeth, impatiently, "why don't you say what it is?"

"I am afraid he was very ill prepared," said Miss Cornelia, apparently talking to herself and oblivious of her niece's presence. But suddenly she seemed to realize it and placed her hand over the paper. "My dear, don't look at this yet," she faltered. "You--it will be a shock, Elizabeth. Prepare yourself."

Elizabeth did not wait to hear more, but went to her and seized the paper from her hand. The headline told, in large type, how Paul Halleck, the prominent young singer, had died the evening before of a mysterious draught of poison, which had been sent to him by mail.

There followed in smaller type the details of the affair, but Elizabeth did not read them. She sank into the nearest chair and sat staring before her with dilated eyes, that seemed to express less surprise or terror than a sort of awe, as at some unexpected manifestation of Providence.

"It was I who killed him," she said. She spoke in a dull, dream-like way, not in the least conscious, as it seemed, of anything extraordinary in the words. Poor Miss Cornelia could form no other conclusion than that she had suddenly lost her mind.

"Elizabeth, my darling," she remonstrated, "what do you mean?" But Elizabeth was still staring before her vacantly, absorbed in her own thoughts.

"And so it has happened!" she said, in a low voice, "at last!--when I had given up hope!"--She was quite oblivious of her aunt's horror or of the staring eyes of the maid, who stood listening, the coffee-pot in her hand, her mouth wide open. But at that moment Miss Cornelia suddenly remembered her presence and signed to her to leave the room--an order obeyed reluctantly.

"Now, Elizabeth," Miss Cornelia faltered out, as the door closed, "do, my darling, explain what you mean. It's quite absurd, you know, to say that you had anything to do with this."

"I wished it," said Elizabeth, gazing at her with dull, expressionless eyes. "I wished, I even prayed, that he might die. And my wishes always come true--only it is in such a way that it does no good."

"But you can't," urged Miss Cornelia, in desperation, "you can't kill people by _wis.h.i.+ng_, Elizabeth. Of course, there are things that one can't--feel as sorry for as one would like"--Her voice faltered, as she thought of certain individuals connected with her own life, whose death it had been hard to regard in the light of an affliction. "We can't help our thoughts," she murmured, "we can only pray not to give way to them."

"Ah, but I didn't," said Elizabeth. "I encouraged them. And now I shall have remorse, I suppose, all my life." She sat pondering a moment, while the expression on her face grew softer. "I am sorry he is dead," she said, at last. "It does me no good now--and he seemed so full of life the last time I saw him. But it was his fate, no doubt--a fortune-teller told him he would die before the year was out. It was his unlucky year, as well as mine. And the prediction has come true--in both cases."

"But how did it happen?" urged Miss Cornelia. "Do read, Elizabeth, how it was. Did he drink poison by mistake?"

Elizabeth took up the paper and read the story, which grew to be a famous one in the annals of New York crime. Halleck had received on New Year's Eve a package which contained a small hunting-flask of sherry. There was no name or card with the present--if present it _were_; nothing to identify the giver, except the hand-writing on the package, which he did not recognize.

He suspected nothing, however, imagining the card to have been forgotten, and accepted the flask as a belated Christmas present; but kept it unopened, in the hope of discovering from whom it came. He had brought it out and showed it the night before to some friends, and the flask and the box in which it arrived were pa.s.sed from one to the other, but each disclaimed all knowledge of them.

"To me," said D'Hauteville, who happened to be present, "it looks like a woman's handwriting, disguised to seem like a man's. Perhaps"--he smiled--"it contains a love potion."

"Or a death potion," suggested another man, laughing.

"I'm not afraid," said the young singer, lightly, "of either catastrophe." With a smile he poured some of the wine into a gla.s.s and raised it to his lips. "To the health," he said, "of the mysterious giver." He emptied the gla.s.s and put it down, observing that it must be, after all, a woman's gift, since no man would have chosen such poor wine. "Try it," he said, but by some fortunate chance no one did.

And in a few minutes Halleck was taken desperately ill, and died before the hastily-summoned physician could save him.

This is, briefly put, the account which Elizabeth read, at first with a strange sense of unreality, as if such tragedies, of which she had often read before in the papers, could not possibly occur within the circle of her own acquaintance. Then followed a growing horror, a feeling of pa.s.sionate remorse for her own indifference.

"Read it, auntie," she said, thrusting the paper into Miss Cornelia's hand. "I--I must be alone to think it over." She went quickly and shut herself in her room. But when there she did not lie down and cry, as might have been best for her; she had not shed any tears since New Year's Eve. She paced up and down, going over the whole thing in her mind, imagining the details with a feverish vividness, struggling, above all, with this irrational, yet terrible sense of guilt.

It _was_ irrational--this she realized even in her state of feverish excitement. The vindictive wish which had crossed her brain would never have gone beyond it and resolved itself into action. She would not even--she knew this now--have been a pa.s.sive factor in Paul's death; she would have been the first to go to his aid, had she seen him suffering. No selfish remembrance of her own gain would have stopped her. And yet--and yet--with all her reasoning, her mind always returned to the same point. She had wished for his death, and her wishes had been fulfilled, too late for her own advantage, only as it seemed, to add to her punishment.

The idea occurred to her all at once that she must go and look at his dead body. It presented itself, in some irrational way, in the light of an atonement. The fever in her blood, the beginning of an illness, made the strained, hysterical thought seem natural and almost inevitable. She was not conscious of doing anything unusual. Hastily, she dressed herself, choosing instinctively a black gown and tying a black veil over her face, and went out into the street, where the cold air, which she had not faced for a week, blew refres.h.i.+ngly on her burning cheeks. She walked all the way, rapidly, choosing unfrequented avenues, and looking neither to the right nor the left, her mind intent on the one object, yet with a strange relief in motion and the intense cold. She reached Carnegie Hall in a surprisingly short time, but here she encountered unexpected difficulties.

"Take you up to Mr. Halleck's studio?" said the elevator-man, looking with surprise and suspicion at this veiled young woman, who made such an extraordinary request. "I can't take you up. The police has charge, and there ain't a soul allowed to go in but Mr. D'Hauteville."