Читать книгу Marked "Personal" - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 8

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On the afternoon of September 20, 1878, two men were taking down an awning in front of the Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue. There had been a large wedding there in the morning. One of the foremost men in New York had been married to a young and beautiful girl, and the crowd which had attended the ceremony had been so great that the neighboring sidewalks had been blocked with people who had not been able to gain admittance to the church. All of these persons had disappeared. But in their stead was another crowd of hustling, jostling people, whose excited looks, turned toward the church entrance, betokened some new and unusual interest connected with the spot, to which the taking down of the awning seemed to give fresh spur.

From the words that were dropped here and there, we may learn what this interest was.

Such phrases as, “Killed!” “Not five hours married!” “A man with millions, who came near being run for governor last fall,” showed that the wedding which had gone off with so much éclat that morning had been followed by a violent death, presumably that of the bridegroom.

A gentleman, young, dashing, and with an air of festivity about him, was passing in a carriage. Seeing the crowd, he leaned out with curiosity on his face, and hearing possibly some one or more of these phrases I have just quoted, he thrust his head forward in sudden agitation and asked the man nearest him what the matter was. The answer came back briefly, and with all the shock of unexpected news.

“Samuel White is dead, sir. Shot, as he was about to leave the house with his bride. Here is where they were married this morning.”

The young man sank back in his carriage as if he had been shot himself. All traces of the wine he had been drinking passed from his face, and in the pallor which followed, could be read the signs of a great emotion. Leaning out again, he glanced rapidly up the street. Another crowd was collected before a house on the upper corner; and, seeing it, he seemed to have no further doubt of the truth of what he had heard. Calling to the coachman, who seemed himself dazed by what he had heard, he bade him drive on, and, as the carriage moved slowly ahead, dropped his face into his hands with a quick shudder, which as rapidly gave way to a wild impatience.

“You go too slow,” he shouted through the front window to the bewildered man in front. “They are in trouble; they may need me; hurry up, and stop as near the house as you can.”

The swish of the whip answered him. The carriage rolled on more rapidly, but a few minutes later came to a sudden stand. Jack Hollister looked impatiently out. They were not far from the curb, on which a policeman was standing.

“No use, sir,” that person was saying. “Mr. White has been shot, and the house is closed to guests; you had better drive back.”

“Wait, wait! I am a friend—an intimate of the family. Mr. White—the son, I mean—will want to see me. I will give you five dollars to get me in.” And he hurriedly stepped from the carriage.

The policeman, after a brief survey of the young man, turned and confronted the crowd. “I am afraid it can’t be done,” said he, “but I will try.”

In five minutes the five dollars were in his hand, and Mr. Hollister in the vestibule of Mr. White’s house.

A detective confronted him.

“What is your business, sir?” he asked.

“I am a friend of the family. I want to see Mr. Stanhope White. Here is my card; let some one take it up.”

The detective beckoned to a man who was waiting near.

“Is young Mr. White willing to see any one?”

The man, who was an old servant of the family, glanced at Mr. Hollister and started forward.

“I think he will see this gentleman,” he declared, and opening the parlor door he ushered him in.

Mr. Hollister, who under a light, almost dilettante manner possessed sensibilities of the keenest nature, flushed as he crossed the threshold. Though the shutters were closed, sufficient light sifted through their cracks to make the place seem bright after the close darkness of the hall; and whether it was that the quick glance of the persons seated about disconcerted him, or whether the odor of the wedding flowers which pervaded the whole atmosphere brought too sudden a sense of the funeral blossoms which must soon take their places here on mantelpiece and table, he staggered for an instant before he sat down. But emotion was natural under the circumstances, and no one noticed it.

A man he knew sat near him. It was Dr. Forsyth, the family physician. Meeting his eyes, Jack rose hurriedly and seated himself beside him.

“What is this dreadful thing which has occurred?” he asked. “Mr. White shot? Who shot him? It is all a terrible mystery to me.”

“And to every one,” returned the other. “He was in his bed-room, making, as every one thought, his final preparations for leaving with his bride, when a pistol shot was heard. Mrs. White who was in the front room, and Stanhope who was on the floor above, both rushed at the sound, and found him lying on the floor, with the pistol smoking at his side.”

“Then he killed himself. I thought—”

“Hush! It was an accident. He was probably putting the pistol into his bag, when by some careless handling it went off. The discharge passed through his heart. It is a startling end to a prosperous career.”

“And—and—the bride?”

“Is prostrated, of course. Such a grand man! But the loss which the country must sustain is of the greater moment. He would have filled the governor’s chair, had he lived.”

Mr. Hollister was growing uneasy.

“Where is Stanhope?” he asked. “I thought it probable he would see me.”

“I do not think he desires to see any one. I have been here an hour and a half—ever since the fatal affair occurred, indeed—and no one has been allowed to go up-stairs but Mrs. Hastings. It is very soon, you know, and even I feel myself more or less of an intruder.”

But Stanhope did want to see his friend, and a few minutes later Jack found himself passing on tip-toe up-stairs, around the balustrade of which still clung the smilax wreaths which had been placed there in honor of the bride. The sickening odor of the great bouquets followed him.

At the head of the stairs he paused, to collect his courage possibly, and then hastily passed on in the butler’s wake. As he did so, he heard a voice, and paused again. A door was opening before him, and from it was stepping a middle-aged lady, clad in the gorgeous attire of a wedding guest. She was speaking, and there was something in her tone—was it a secret complacence?—that caused the dark flush to reappear on Mr. Hollister’s impressionable cheek.

“Do not give way, my dear child,” she was saying with motherly impressiveness. “After I have seen your father, I will return. You must not be left alone at this terrible time.”

The faint murmur which came in answer from behind the half-closed door was in feminine tones, and betrayed the fact that it was the bereaved wife she had been addressing. Mr. Hollister, placing himself close against the wall, let the mother go by without a word, though he knew her well. She, on her part, was so engaged in plucking up with careful hand her voluminous draperies, that she did not even see him. He heard her murmur some words about her carriage as she passed him, and that was all. The door at his side gently closed, and all was still again.

“Will you come up now, sir?” asked the butler from the stair above.

Mr. Hollister started, and hastily advanced. As he passed the door which had just shut, he cast a glance at it. What was in that glance? No common emotion, it is evident.

Stanhope was in his own room, and greeted Jack with eager warmth.

“I did not know what I wanted,” said he; “it was you.”

Jack, flattered as he always was by his friend’s preference, shook the other’s hand and endeavored to utter some well-meant phrases of condolence, but failed. There was that in Stanhope’s manner which cut short such efforts. For emotion like this, Jack had no words. That the emotion was not the simple one of shock, or even of bereavement, did not make the moment any easier for Jack. Dropping his eyes from his friend’s face, he waited for Stanhope to speak first.

Stanhope White had fulfilled the promise of his childhood. He possessed a face and figure calculated not only to arouse instant admiration, but to awaken likewise sentiments of the utmost confidence. No one surveying for the first time his handsome features could doubt for a moment that their attractiveness sprang largely from the earnest, candid, and generous nature that informed them. Men liked his straightforwardness of character, women his chivalrous deference to themselves, and children his gay laugh and brotherly tenderness. A conqueror from his birth, it had taken a wise mother’s most careful attention to keep under the egotism which usually springs to meet an almost universal admiration.

But her efforts had been rewarded, and at twenty-five years of age Stanhope White was a man whose claims upon your attention lay deeper than any given by perfection of features, or the charms of address and bearing. In disposition he was cheerful, and it was a rare thing to see him without a smile upon his lips.

This was why Jack Hollister felt himself in the presence of a stranger on this fatal afternoon. To behold gloom upon that face was a revelation; and, though nothing could rob it of its sweetness, there were strange lines about the mouth and eyes, which would have to be studied to make the face seem familiar again. Then the restlessness in his manner! What did it mean? Jack wished his friend would speak, and relieve him from a tension of feeling that unnerved him.

Finally he did. But the words were unexpected and somewhat startling.

“Jack, you are a lawyer, and have a keen eye and quick understanding when you wish to use them. I have something for you to do, if you feel like giving me any help at this time. Are you willing? It will require caution and self-control. Can you muster them? I am well-nigh powerless from the shock myself.”

“If you need me, here I am,” answered Jack, promptly, but with a slight inward shrinking he happily concealed. He could not imagine what Stanhope wanted, and hesitated to ask any questions even of himself.

Stanhope, with a sudden relief of manner, passed to the door and locked it; then he came back and sat down in front of Jack on the broad divan, upon which the latter had so often seen him lying outstretched in the delicious reverie born of youthful hopes and the curling wreaths of a cigar.

“Jack,” he earnestly began. “there is something more terrible than death in this house.”

Jack started, and a deep flush rose to his face and spread a haze over his eyes.

“What!” he stammered, “has—has—she—”

The grasp with which Stanhope seized his hand was painful.

“I mean,” explained the latter, “that there is doubt here. The accident which robbed my father of his life—Was it an accident, Jack? To be sure of it, I would give the millions that have so unhappily fallen to me. Nay, more—I would give my life.”

Jack, astounded and greatly disturbed, stared at his friend in a secret dismay which threw all his own thoughts into tumult.

“I do not understand,” he protested; “I thought your father loved Miss Hast—What makes you think it was not an accident?” he demanded.

“I—cannot—tell you—Jack. That is why it is so difficult for me to get help. No one but you can give it to me, for every one else would insist upon my reasons.”

More and more moved by some strong internal agitation, Jack rose, but as precipitatedly reseated himself.

“What can I do?” he asked. “Tell me, and I will make what endeavor I can.”

“Go to the room. See him. See everything. Be my second self, and draw your own conclusions. They think—all think—that the pistol went off inadvertently. But what did he want of a pistol on a wedding tour; and if he had wanted it, was he, my father, the man to handle it carelessly?”

“No; no—and yet men in a state of agitation—”

“True, true! and he was agitated—has been agitated all day!”

“Have been known to meet with such accidents. I cannot conceive of it being anything else, Stanhope. With such a bride, such a son, such a position—a man would be mad—”

“Or secretly very wretched.”

Jack, with his two hands gripping hard the arms of the chair in which he sat, stammered as he inquired:

“And was your father wretched?”

“I have never thought so,” answered Stanhope. “But we never know what goes on in the hearts of those who are nearest to us.”

Jack, shifting uneasily, dropped his own eyes.

“No,” returned he. “But we usually see evidences.”

“He was not himself, to-day.”

“No?”

“Not since the ceremony.”

“I did not observe,”

“No one observed it; but I know my father.”

“And—and—”

“I cannot tell you any more. If you can tell me, sometime, that there is no doubt—you have no doubt— that my father was the victim of a mistake, you will make me the happiest man on earth. That is all I have to say now, except to pray that you will not desert me. Stay with me till this is all over. I am weak as a woman, and I want your support.”

Jack looked embarrassed.

“We are not alone in the house,” said he. “I saw Mrs. Hastings below. She does not like me. I had rather not remain here; it might prove disagreeable to her.”

“I had forgotten Mrs. Hastings. I wish you would, too. Stay with me, Jack. We will not trouble the ladies.”

“Well, we’ll see,” said Jack, turning away. Unlocking the door, he stood ready to go out. “Will it be necessary for me,” he somewhat reluctantly asked, “to have any conversation with Mrs. White?”

“Mrs.— Oh, no, no. Do not disturb her, Jack; her grief is great enough without having her mind disturbed by any such suspicion as I have mentioned to you.”

“Of course, of course. I will go down, then; and bear up, old fellow; everything now depends on you.” The stern line taken by Stanhope’s lip showed that he realized this only too well.