Читать книгу Marked "Personal" - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 11

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It was a shock to Stanhope to encounter Jack Hollister again when he went upstairs. He had forgotten Jack; forgotten even what Jack had told him. But at the sight of his face it all came back, and had Jack himself been less intent upon his own thoughts and purposes, he must have noticed the change which this sudden remembrance caused in his friend’s expression.

But Jack, who had had time to think while Stanhope was having his interview with Mrs. White, had something to say and did not wait long before saying it.

“Stanhope,” cried he, as soon as the latter had closed the door behind him, “having told you what I did, I must tell more. I do not want any indefiniteness to hang about this subject—as far as you and I are concerned, at least. I have never been Flo—Mrs. White’s recognized lover. I have never even been particularly favored by her, but I have loved her ever since I first saw her at the Charity Ball, two years ago; and though I am a club man and the owner of fast horses, a pleasure yacht, and whatever else seems to go to make a devil-may-care sort of fellow, there has not been a day in all that time when I wouldn’t have given it all up for a quiet country home with her in it. But she was not of my mind. At least, I never seemed to have any chance after your father began to pay his addresses to her, though I have thought (Stanhope, I could not look you in the face if I did not tell you the whole truth) that—that lately she was feeling a little differently from formerly, and that if I were patient and did not obtrude myself too much upon her she might come to see that youth should mate with youth, however desirable were the advantages which an older bridegroom might offer her. That was the reason I was so cut up when I found she was determined to keep her engagement, and that is why I have been so overwhelmed by the more than tragic occurrence of to-day. To see the man who has robbed you of the woman you love, cut down on the very threshold of his marriage with her, makes you feel—especially if you are that man’s friend—as if you were his murderer; for—for it was only last night that I found myself wishing (it was while we were at dinner, Stanhope, and I was laughing loud at the very moment, I remember, at that joke of your father’s about Beaton) that a stroke of lightning would shatter the house over our heads, so that this day’s sun would never rise for any of us.”

“Jack!”

“You did not know I could carry bitterness to such a length, did you? I did not either. But jealousy makes a brute of a man almost without his knowledge, and I am sorry enough now, and ashamed enough too, and though I never felt before such an irresistible longing to be with her and to comfort her and to be all the world to her, in short, as I do at this moment, yet if by raising a finger we could have him back again, strong and hopeful and full of devotion to her as he was last night, I should not hesitate to raise that finger. Do you believe me, Stanhope?”

“Yes, yes,” was the almost inarticulate reply. In what a tragedy were they involved! And how much deeper were its complications than even Jack realized!

“You have no liking for a girl, and do not know what love is,” the latter now went on, over-anxious perhaps to clear himself entirely in his friend’s eyes, “so you cannot realize, of course, how a fellow can lose his head even over a woman who does not give him one ray of hope to live on. But your day may come, and then you will understand it and not blame me so much.”

Stanhope, who had been mechanically pacing to and fro through the room while his friend was talking, stopped, with his back to that friend, and remarked quietly:

“I do not blame you. If I do not understand love, I understand men; and you are a very good sort of man, if you do have your bitter moments and jealous impulses.”

Jack, greatly relieved, stepped forward to the other’s side. “Then, you don’t mean to let this thing come between us?” he cried.

Stanhope, turning slowly, held out his hand for answer

Jack grasped it, and the eyes of the two men met. If Jealousy made a third in their party, his face was veiled in mist, and neither saw him, which was another of the tragic mysteries of that tragic day.

Jack left soon after this, and Mrs. Hastings came. The latter was one of those women who invade any house they enter; and from the moment her large and important person crossed the threshold, quietude and peace seemed to vanish, and grief itself to take on a garb of affectation, which robbed it of all hallowing influences, and made the house almost untenable to Stanhope. He, therefore, kept his room as much as possible during the evening; but in the morning, being assured that the lady had driven out to make such purchases as were necessary for her daughter’s mourning, he descended to his father’s study and sent for Felix and Peter. The doubts which had surrounded his father’s death with horror still clung to him, and he was determined to settle, if possible, what had occurred in that short hour before the marriage, to change his father’s appearance from one of joyful expectation to that of secret but scarcely concealed despair.

The two men came in together, one by the front hall and one by the back. At the sight of their young master, standing in the room where they had so often received the orders of his father, they simultaneously bowed their heads. Felix was an old man, and Peter was a young one; but both were honest, and both had held the deceased statesman in great respect. Stanhope had perfect confidence in them.

“Felix,” said he to the older man, “it has devolved upon me to take charge of my father’s affairs. They were very numerous, as you know, and very complicated. Among other things, I am assured that some letters were brought him yesterday before the ceremony, which it is my duty to answer. I do not find them on his desk, or in the pockets of the coat he wore; yet you brought him some mail, did you not, you or Peter?”

“Only what came while you were at breakfast,” returned Felix. “You remember, sir, that you were present, and stood in the window while he read his letters.”

With a shock Stanhope did remember. He had seen his father receive three letters and read three letters, and he had also seen that nothing in these letters had affected his father in the least degree. “Those are not the ones. I mean,” he remarked.

“But no other mail came after that, till some time after ten,” quickly declared Peter. “And there was nothing in that mail but papers, for I brought it up myself. I think that is the very pile, sir, just as I laid it down,” and he pointed to three or four unopened pamphlets and a New York Observer that were lying in a heap near the back of the large table, called, by courtesy, Mr. White’s desk.

Stanhope was not satisfied.

“Did no private messenger come to the door? Or did not my father have a caller at that early hour, who might have brought him a letter?”

Both men shook their heads.

“We were very busy, the both of us,” asserted Felix. “There was many a ring at the bell, and a lot of things to look after; but I don’t remember any messenger for Mr. White, or any caller except one, a Mr. Townsend whom he would not see.”

Stanhope knew Mr. Townsend; he was one of those politicians who would not hesitate to stop a man on his way to the altar, if he thought he could call his attention to a particular friend, just then in need of an office.

“I am sure,” Stanhope persisted, “that some letter reached him in some way, just before he went to church—an important letter which I ought to find.”

The two men looked at each other. “We don’t know anything about it,” averred Felix.

“Mr. White wrote some letters,” here ventured Peter, scarcely knowing whether this piece of information would be of any importance to his young master or not. “It was while he was waiting for the carriage. He sent for me to mail them, sir.”

“Yes, yes,” interposed Stanhope; “I know he wrote letters, and that you mailed them, but it is not of these I wanted to hear. Where is Josephine? Let her come. She may have taken one in while you were both busy; she does sometimes, I believe.”

Josephine was summoned, and Stanhope put the same questions to her. Had she carried Mr. White any letter the morning before, or had she introduced any visitor into his study? The girl flushed—she was of a timid nature, and stood in great awe of the handsome young master.

“No, sir,” said she. “There was a gentleman who called, but I did not take him up-stairs, because Mr. White said he did not know him, and could not at that time see anybody.”

“A gentleman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he give his name? *

“Yes, sir, but I don’t remember it. It was something like Stewart, but not that exactly. He carried a small paper parcel.”

“Did he leave the parcel?”

“Oh, no, sir: that is, I suppose not. He was gone when I went down with Mr. White’s message. I suppose one or other of the men told him it was Mr. White’s wedding morning.”

But Felix and Peter, at whom she glanced at this moment, shook their heads. They had not seen any such person. Did she leave him standing in the hall?

“Yes,” she anxiously replied. “Was not that right? He looked like a gentleman.”

Stanhope, who failed to see how this person’s errand could have any connection with the matter he was secretly sifting, but who nevertheless felt bound to probe to the bottom anything which came up, asked at what time this man called.

The answer came that it could not have been far from ten, as it was just half-past when she went out on an errand for Mr. White a little while after.

Stanhope, who had not heard of this errand before, felt a sudden embarrassment. He realized that he ought to inquire into it, and at the same time he equally realized that too great a display of curiosity as to Mr. White’s movements immediately preceding the shooting could not but arouse the very suspicion he was the most anxious to avoid. In the struggle his interest overcame his discretion, and he inquired with what calmness he could, what was the nature of the errand upon which she had been sent by his father.

The reply was simple. She had been given a small package to carry to the Westminster Hotel.

This was startling. The man who had wished to see Mr. White a little while before had held a package in his hand; and a half-hour later this girl had been sent by his father with a package to a hotel downtown. Were they the same package? He could not forbear to ask her.

Her eyes opened at the suggestion. Did the young master forget that the man had not left his package? But she replied simply that they were not at all alike in size or appearance. The one she had carried was small and wrapped in white paper; the one which the man had held in his hand was a brown parcel and much larger.

Was Stanhope making a fool of himself? He began to think so, and presently dismissed the servants. But when they were gone, his mind returned again and again to those two packages, and he found himself wondering again and again what his father had sent to the Westminster Hotel, and what was the errand of the man who carried the brown-paper parcel. Suddenly he rose to his feet. In the waste-paper basket, under the table before him, was a piece of brown wrapping-paper, and a fine green cord—the former smooth and still showing by its folds both the size and shape of the box around which it had been bound; the latter with its knot cut, but of the length exactly to fit the parcel contained by the paper. They lay on the top, and under them were the letters received by his father while at the breakfast-table the morning before.

Stanhope, seizing them, surveyed the paper with interest, and was startled to detect, written upon it in characterless writing, not only his father’s name, but the simple and significant word Personal, which when placed on letter or package testifies to its importance either to the sender or to the recipient.

Taking the measure of the parcel with his eye, and then thrusting both paper and cord into a cupboard, he rang again for Josephine.

This time she came in a flutter of excitement annoying, if not alarming, for Stanhope to see. But he affected to notice nothing, and asked her, with just a faint apology for his curiosity, whether she had observed closely enough the parcel carried by the man whom she had let into the house the morning before, to be able to tell its exact size, and whether it was a sealed package or one done up with a string.

Josephine had not the discretion of either Peter or Felix, who would neither of them have betrayed surprise even if they had felt it: so she showed her astonishment that he should still harp on this subject, even while she answered that she had not noticed the parcel particularly, but she thought it had looked like a book, and did remember that it was tied with a green string, though why she had noted this she did not know, unless it was that green was her favorite color and always caught her eye.

Stanhope, with an impulse he afterward decried, opened the cupboard above him and took out the paper and string.

“Are you sure,” said he, showing them, “that the man you let in did not see my father, and leave with him the parcel you observed in his hand?”

With a stare totally unfeigned this time, she contemplated string and paper gravely for a moment, then replied:

“Some one—it could not have been the cook—must have taken it from him while I came up-stairs. You must ask Peter and Felix again, for I don’t know any more about it than I have told you.” And she looked very deprecating and sincere.

Stanhope was not a good actor. He was of too candid a nature to be apt at subterfuge, and it would have been better, perhaps, if he had left these inquiries to Jack. But he was committed to them now, and he was going on, perhaps to make matters worse, when there came a low knock at the door, and Mrs. White, the young widow, entered the room.

In her hand was a small white parcel, at the sight of which Josephine started perceptibly.