That Affair at Elizabeth 9 – Stevenson · Verses Across
Literature · Detective Fiction
That Affair at Elizabeth 9The Old Sorrow
18
Literature · Detective Fiction
That Affair at Elizabeth 9
The Old Sorrow
StevensonEnglish
"To Mrs. Lawrence?" I repeated. Here was a coincidence, indeed! Could it be, I asked myself again, that this thing had been deliberately arranged? But I dismissed the thought as ridiculous.
"I will tell you the story so far I know it," said the clergyman. "It is no breach of trust to do so, for it was public property at the time, though long since forgotten. I should not recall it now but for the fact that it may shed some light upon to-day's occurrence."
"Perhaps it will," I agreed.
"Mrs. Lawrence," began my companion, "was born at Scotch Plains about fifty years ago. Her father's name was Hiram Jarvis. He had made a comfortable fortune in the dry-goods business in New York, and had built himself a country-house at Scotch Plains, going in to New York every morning and returning every evening. Scotch Plains is a very small place--a mere village--but has a number of handsome country homes. It is not on the railroad, but lies about a mile back of Fanwood, which is its station. It has a little Presbyterian church, and when I graduated in '65 from Princeton seminary, I received a call to it, which I accepted. Mr. Jarvis and his daughter were members of my congregation--the former, indeed, being the president of the board of trustees."
I nodded my interest. Plainly I had done well in coming to Dr. Schuyler.
"Jarvis was a tall, straight, austere Scotchman of the old school," continued the clergyman, "with a belief in predestination and eternal punishment, which was--well--rather fanatical, even for those days. His daughter was a beautiful girl of seventeen or eighteen. Her mother had died some years before and she was left solely in her father's care, without brothers or sisters. There was an aunt in New York City, a younger sister of her father, and married to a banker named Heminway, but she seemingly took little interest in the girl. Her character--or so I judged the few times I saw her--was much like her brother's, tempered, perhaps, with a little more worldliness. I think she's still living; at least, I've never heard of her death. She has been a widow for many years.
"So the girl grew up in the lonely house, with only her father to care for. I sometimes thought his treatment of her a little severe--he would rarely permit her to take part in even the most innocent merry-making--and I often found myself pitying her. But I concluded it was none of my business--a conclusion which was cowardly, perhaps; but that was my first charge, and Jarvis was quite a terrifying man."
I could well believe it, and said so.
"There was another member of my congregation," went on Dr. Schuyler, "concerning whom I had doubts of quite an opposite character--that was young Boyd Endicott. The Endicott place lay just beyond the Jarvis house, which it quite overshadowed, for the Endicotts were very wealthy. The father did not belong to my church--nor, indeed, to any church--and I seldom met him. He had been associated with Jim Fisk in some operations which seemed to me of questionable honesty--though Fisk's reputation may have prejudiced me unduly. But his wife was a lovely Christian woman, and devoted to her children."
"Her children?" I repeated. The story interested me so intensely that I wanted every detail.
"There were two, a girl of seventeen or eighteen, named Ruth; and Boyd, who was about nineteen, and a junior at Princeton. I had heard something of his college escapades while I was at the seminary, but the first time I saw him was when he came home for the holidays. He was a handsome boy, dark, with a face that showed his breeding; but he was the wildest, most untamable I ever knew. When he came walking into church with his mother, it used to amuse me to see how Mr. Jarvis would glare at him; he considered him a firebrand of hell, and didn't scruple to say so. And young Endicott would stare back--at Jarvis, as I thought, but I saw my mistake afterwards.
"There was more or less trouble of a personal kind between the two. Endicott's dog killed some of the Jarvis chickens, and Jarvis shot the dog. Endicott rode over the Jarvis land, and Jarvis swore out a warrant against him for trespass--mere persecution, the villagers thought it,--and there were other differences of a similar nature, which were ended only when the boy went back to school.
"Of course, Mr. Lester, I don't know all the steps in the affair; but on Christmas Eve, just a year later, there came a great knocking at my door, and when I opened it, there on the step stood Jarvis, with such a face as I had never seen on a man before. He stamped in and flung a sheet of paper down on the table.
"'Read that!' he said, in a stifled voice. 'Read that, man! Oh, that I should have bred a harlot!'
"I was too astonished to reply, but I picked up the paper and read it. It was a note from his daughter--I forget the exact words--but she told him that she had secretly married Boyd Endicott, knowing that she could never win his consent, and prayed for his forgiveness. They were going far away, she said; she would not see him again for a long time, and hoped he would think kindly of her. It was a touching note, Mr. Lester."
The good man's voice choked and he paused to regain control of it. As for me, I thought of that other note I had read a few hours since.
"He was like a man crazed," continued Dr. Schuyler, at last. "He wouldn't listen to reason; he demanded only that I accompany him, while he sought his daughter out and made sure that she and young Endicott were really married. He swore that he would follow them to the ends of the earth that he might see them wedded with his own eyes. A heavy storm was raging, but I could not deny him; he had his buggy at the door, and we drove away to the Fanwood station. There the agent told us that Miss Jarvis had taken the afternoon train for New York. There was no other train for an hour, so we waited. Jarvis tramped up and down the station like a wild thing. And then, just before the train was due, there came a telegram for him. It was from his sister and stated that Mary had reached her home unattended and was very ill.
"That settled the matter, so far as I was concerned. I drove back home again and Jarvis went on to New York. Unfortunately, in the first rage of his discovery of his daughter's flight, he had given the servants some hint of the affair, and it leaked out, but was gradually forgotten. Mary Jarvis, after a long illness, went with her father for a visit to Scotland, and did not return to her home at Scotch Plains for nearly three years. She was greatly changed--older and with an air of sadness which never quite left her.
"Her father was changed, too. He had left his daughter at his old home in Scotland and hurried back--why I didn't guess till afterwards. He became more crabbed and irritable than ever; he seemed to be withering away, and his face grew to haunt me, it was so harried and anxious. I suspected that he had become involved in business troubles of some sort, for the country was on the verge of a panic, and once I tried to approach the subject to offer him any help I could, but he stopped me with such ferocity that I never tried again. Then, suddenly, came the news that Endicott had been caught with Fisk in the ruin of Black Friday; but while Fisk saved himself by repudiating his obligations, Endicott had been bound in such a way that he could not repudiate--and the man who had bound him was Hiram Jarvis."
The speaker paused and leaned back for a moment in his chair, his face very stern.
"That was his revenge," he added. "But I doubt if he foresaw how bitter it was to be. For Endicott shot himself; the place was sold, and the widow and her daughter came to live here in Elizabeth, where they had relatives."
"But the boy," I asked; "where was he?"
"He was killed two days after that Christmas Eve in a railroad wreck somewhere in the West--I have forgotten exactly where. His body was brought home to Scotch Plains and buried there."
"In the West?" I repeated. "What was he doing in the West?"
"I don't know," answered Dr. Schuyler. "I've never been able to understand it."
"Were he and Miss Jarvis already married? Or did they expect to be married afterwards?"
"Well," said Dr. Schuyler slowly, "I inferred from the note that they were already married. But I may have been mistaken in thinking so. I know that her father did not believe it."
"And you say that you've never been able to understand why, after all, they did not go away together--why Miss Jarvis went to New York and Endicott to the West?"
Dr. Schuyler hesitated.
"Of course," he said, after a moment, "the most obvious explanation is that Endicott deserted her; and yet that would have been so unlike him, for he was not a vicious or selfish fellow, Mr. Lester, but generous, honourable, warm-hearted, despite his other faults, which were merely, I think, faults of youth. I've never believed that he deserted her. Perhaps, at the last moment, her courage failed; or perhaps there was a mistake of some sort, a misunderstanding which kept them apart."
I pondered it for a moment, then put it aside. That was not the mystery I had set myself to solve.
"Well, Miss Jarvis evidently got over it," I remarked, "since she afterwards became Mrs. Lawrence."
"That is one way of looking at it," he assented; "but I've always thought that she was so far from getting over it that she never greatly cared what became of her afterwards."
"Was it so bad as that?"
"It was as bad as it could possibly be. She did not return from Scotland for two years and more. It was about a year later that she married Lawrence, who was a business associate of her father, and lived here at Elizabeth. I had been called to the pastorate of the church here and performed the ceremony."
"Lawrence must have been considerably older than she, then," I suggested.
"Oh, much older. He was a widower, without children. I always fancied that her father had arranged the match. He had completely broken down, and knew he hadn't long to live."
"And there was only one child of this marriage?"
"Only one--Marcia."
"How long has Mrs. Lawrence been a widow?"
"Oh, for twenty years and more."
"She has lived here ever since?"
"She has kept her home here, but she was abroad with her daughter for a long time--six or seven years, at least. She was very fond of France--and so was Marcia, perhaps because she was born there."
"Born there?" I repeated, in some surprise.
"Yes. Mr. Lawrence had a very severe illness a few months after his marriage--I don't remember just what it was--and his doctor ordered him to the south of France for a long rest. His wife, of course, accompanied him, and Marcia was born there. I think that is all the story, Mr. Lester."
"Not quite all," I said. "There is still a loose end. What became of Mrs. Endicott and her daughter--I think you said there was a daughter?"
"Yes--Ruth. One of the loveliest girls I ever knew. They came here from Scotch Plains, as I've said, to make their home with Mrs. Endicott's sister, Mrs. Kingdon."
He noticed my start of astonishment, and paused to look at me inquiringly.
"I beg your pardon," I said, "but the name struck me. Miss Lawrence's maid is named Kingdon."
"Yes; she's a niece of Mrs. Endicott. I've sometimes thought that it was because of this relationship that Mrs. Lawrence was so kind to her and to her sister."
"Kind to them?" I repeated. "In what way?"
"She gave them the cottage they live in," he explained, "and has helped them in many other ways. The younger girl, Lucy, has a place in her household, where her duties, I fancy, are purely nominal. Her sister is supposed to take in sewing, but she really does very little."
"And they are Mrs. Endicott's nieces?"
"Yes--her sister's children."
"And Boyd Endicott's cousins?"
"Precisely."
I felt a little glow of excitement, for here was a clue which might lead me out of the labyrinth--a loose end, which, grasped firmly, might serve to unravel this tangled skein.
"Please go on," I said. "You have not yet told me what became of Mrs. Endicott and her daughter."
"They made their home with Mrs. Kingdon, who was also a widow. Mrs. Kingdon had had much trouble--her husband had died in an asylum for the insane--and they had a hard time to get along. But Mrs. Endicott died within a year."
"And Ruth?" I questioned.
"Ruth was a lovely girl--I shall never forget her--with the same dark, passionate beauty her brother had. She possessed artistic talent which seemed to me of an unusual order, and she fancied that she could make a living by painting portraits. But she soon found that there was no market for her work here in Elizabeth, and that she needed years of training before she could hope to be successful elsewhere. So she was forced to give it up."
"And then?" I prompted, for I saw by his hesitation that there was still something coming, and I was determined to have the whole story.
"I have already told you that Mr. Lawrence was a widower. His first wife was an invalid for a long time before her death, and when Ruth Endicott found she could not make a living with her brush, she accepted the position of companion to Mrs. Lawrence. I do not fancy the place was a pleasant one, but she kept it until Mrs. Lawrence's death."
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes for an instant in the effort to straighten out this story, which was always turning back upon itself. What mystery was there--what mystery could there be--in the lives of the Kingdons and the Lawrences and the Endicotts, which had led up to the tragedy for which I was seeking an explanation?
"Well, and after that?" I asked, giving it up with a sigh of despair and turning back to the clergyman.
"There isn't much more to tell. After Mrs. Lawrence's death, Ruth Endicott remained for a time as Lawrence's housekeeper. But she had overworked herself--she seemed the very embodiment of health, and taxed her strength too heavily. She broke down very suddenly, and died, if I remember rightly, in Florida, where the elder Kingdon girl had taken her. She was the last of the Endicotts."
"The last of the Endicotts. The last of the Endicotts." I repeated the words over and over to myself. It may have been a presentiment, or merely an idle fancy, but something whispered in my ear--some impalpable presence warned me--that I had not yet heard the last of her. "Ruth Endicott." There was a something in the name--a melody, the vision it evoked of a dark and brilliantly beautiful woman--which haunted me.
And yet, what possible connection could she have with the mystery which I had started to investigate? Thirty years dead--how could any fact connected with her drive Marcia Lawrence forth into hiding at the hour of her wedding? The utter absurdity of the thought was so apparent that I put it impatiently from me.
"You knew Mr. Lawrence, of course?" I asked, at last.
"Oh, yes," and he hitched uneasily in his chair, as though approaching an unwelcome topic. "But I did not know him well. He was what the world calls a hard man--somewhat harsh and cold, though perfectly free from positive vice. He was thoroughly respected."
"He seems to have left a large property."
"Yes; one of the largest in Elizabeth. Mrs. Lawrence, of course, inherited her father's, also."
"Both she and her daughter are members of your church?"
"Two of the most faithful. They give largely to charity; they are really Christian women."
We sat silent for a moment. To me, at least, the mystery seemed deeper than ever.
"Has it occurred to you, Mr. Lester," asked the clergyman hesitatingly, "that perhaps Miss Lawrence discovered something in Mr. Curtiss's past----"
"Yes," I interrupted. "I put that before Curtiss squarely, and he assured me there was nothing she could discover. I'm sure he spoke the truth. Besides, in that case, why should Miss Lawrence flee? Why not merely dismiss him? Her flight seems to argue some guilt on her part."
"Yes," nodded my companion; "yes."
"Some guilt, too," I added, "of a very remarkable kind, which she was not conscious of until this morning, and which then appeared suddenly before her in such hideous shape that flight was her only resource. That seems inconceivable, doesn't it?"
Dr. Schuyler dropped his head back against his chair with a little sigh which bespoke utter fatigue.
"Yes," he said, "inconceivable--the whole thing is inconceivable. It's a kind of horrible nightmare. I can't make anything of it. My brain is in a whirl."
"I'm taxing your patience too long," I protested, rising instantly. "You need rest. Only let me thank you for your kindness."
He held out his hand with a smile.
"I seem only to have made dark places darker," he said. "If you succeed in untangling the snarl, I should like to hear about it."
"You shall," I promised and took myself back to the hotel. I felt that there was nothing more to be done that night, and so mounted to my room.
As I started to undress, I remembered suddenly the envelope Curtiss had sent me. I got it out and opened it, and my heart leaped with a sudden suffocating sympathy as I looked at the photograph within. A Madonna, indeed! Mr. Royce had chosen the right word, had paid a fitting tribute not only to her beauty but to the spotless soul behind it. For the face was essentially girlish, virginal--there was no shameful secret back of that clear, direct gaze. It was sweet, frank, winning--a strong face, too, showing intellect and training; no ordinary woman, I told myself; not one, certainly, to be swayed by momentary passion, to yield to an unreasoning impulse. No, nor one to fall victim to an adventurer; for this was a woman with ideals and high ones--a woman whose clear eyes could detect any specious imposture at a glance. A fitting mate for Burr Curtiss--the appointed mate--and yet not his! Not his! Snatched from him by a desperate act. Desperate! If I, a man hardened by contact with the world, could feel that, how much more poignantly must she have felt it--with what horror must she have shrunk from it--with what agony yielded!
As I gazed at her, it seemed to me that there was something familiar in the face--in the set of the eyes, the shape of the forehead--something familiar in the expression, in the poise of the head, which puzzled and eluded me. A resemblance to her mother, I decided at last, and so put the photograph away and went to bed.
But sleep did not come easily. Ever before my eyes there danced a vision of that vine-embowered cottage opening from the Lawrence grounds. There, I felt, lay the key to the mystery; it was to it I must turn for the clue which would lead me out of this labyrinth. There was some secret about these Kingdon sisters which defied and worried me. Dr. Schuyler's explanation of their connection with Mrs. Lawrence did not in the least satisfy me. That she should keep them near her, shower them with gifts, merely because of an old fondness for a cousin of theirs, seemed to me exceedingly improbable. There must be some other reason, some more compelling one than that.
It was much more likely, I told myself, remembering the passionate fierceness of the younger sister, that the gifts were intended to placate, not to reward; that they were the outgrowth of fear, not of affection. Fear of what? I could not even guess. Fear of the exposure of some secret, perhaps--and the thought stung me to a sudden attention.
Had the gifts been in vain? Had the secret been exposed? Was it they who had whispered in Marcia Lawrence's ear the story which had broken the marriage, caused her flight, ruined her future? Was that their revenge for some old injury? Had they waited till the last moment to make it more complete, more crushing? But if they, indeed, had so avenged themselves, would she have fled to them for refuge? Would she not rather have fled from them with loathing?
I felt that I was entangling myself in a web of my own weaving. I put the problem from me, but it pursued me even past sleep's portals. I dreamed that I was staring over the hedge at the Kingdon cottage, at a lighted window. Three women were in the room, as I could see from the shadows thrown upon the blind. They were walking up and down, seemingly in great excitement. I fancied that I could hear the sound of voices, but I could distinguish no words. Then suddenly, two of the women sprang upon the third. She struggled desperately, but their hands were at her throat, choking her life away. She turned toward me, the curtain seemed to lift, and I beheld the agonised face of Marcia Lawrence.
I tried to leap the hedge, but could not stir. Some power beyond me seemed to hold me fast; some mighty weight bound me to the spot. A moment longer the struggle lasted, while I stood staring; I felt her eyes on mine, I knew that she had seen me. She held out an imploring hand; then, when I made no sign in answer, despair swept across her face, she seemed to realise her helplessness, and collapsed into the arms of her assailants with a scream so shrill, so terrible that it startled me awake.
