Part 5

“Your name is Murray, isn’t it? I was sure it must be”--as he did not dissent. “Mine is Jane Freeman, and we’re awfully glad you’ve come to town. We’re expecting you to supper you know, and you might as well come right in. Everybody else will be here pretty soon, and we’ll just have that much more time to get acquainted. Won’t the girls be humming though when they find out I met you first! But I had a sort of a right, because my mother and your mother were schoolmates together, you know! Were you trying to find the right door. It is confusing here. Doctor Harrison’s study is that door, and that one goes into the choir-room, and this enters the kitchen and dining-rooms. We go over to this other door, and enter through the chapel. Every one gets lost here at first.”

“Yes, I guess I did lose my way,” murmured Murray Van Rensselaer, feeling it imperative to say something, under the circumstances, and casting furtive glances behind him to see how he could get away.

“Come right around this way,” went on Jane volubly. “Here’s the path. Have you been over to Mrs. Summers’ yet? Isn’t she coming over? I thought she would have shown you the way.”

“No, I haven’t been to Mrs. Summers’ yet,” he said, catching eagerly at the idea. “But I really can’t go in this way, I’ve--You see there was a wreck on the road--”

“Oh, were you _really_ in the wreck after all? How wonderful! And you got through? How ever did you do it? Why, the relief train hasn’t come back yet--at least it hadn’t when I came over.”

“Oh, I walked part of the way and got on the freight--”

“Oh, really! How thrilling! Then you can tell us all about the wreck. We haven’t heard much. Come right in and meet Anita. I want you to tell her about the wreck.”

But the young man halted firmly on the walk.

“Indeed,” said he decidedly, “it’s quite impossible. I’m a wreck myself. I’ve got to dress before I could possibly meet anybody, except in the dark, and I think you’ll have to excuse me tonight. My trunk hasn’t come yet, you know, and I’m really not fit to be seen. You don’t know what a wreck is, I guess.”

“Oh, were you really in it like that!” exclaimed Jane adoringly. “How wonderful that you escaped! But you’re mistaken about your trunk. It came yesterday. Mrs. Summers told me this morning it had arrived, and it’s over in your room. If you really must dress first I’ll show you the way to Mrs. Summers’, but it wouldn’t be necessary, you know. You would be all the more a hero. You could come right in the church dressing-room and wash and comb your hair. It would be terribly interesting and dramatic for you to appear just as you came from the wreck, you know.”

“Thank you,” said the young man dryly. “Much too interesting for me. I’ll just get over to my trunk if you don’t mind,” he insinuated soothingly. “Which way is the house? I won’t have any trouble in finding it. It’s not far away, you say?”

“Oh no, it’s right here,” she said excitedly, with a vague wave of her hand. “Come right across the lawn. It’s shorter. I don’t mind running over in the least. In fact I’ve got to go and see if I can’t borrow another vase for some roses that just arrived. You must be very tired after such an exciting afternoon. Was it very terrible at first? The shock, I mean?”

“Oh! Terrible? Yes, the wreck. Why, rather unpleasant at first, you know. The confusion and--and--”

“I suppose the women all screamed. They usually do when they are frightened. I never can see why. Now, I never scream. When I’m frightened I’m just as cool. My father says he can always trust me in a crisis because I keep still and do something. You look as if you were that way, too. But then men are, of course.”

She was steering him swiftly toward a neat Queen Anne house of somewhat ancient date, perhaps, but very pretty and attractive, in spite of the fact that the maples with which it was surrounded were bare of leaves, and most of the vines had dropped their leaves. There were little ruffled curtains at the windows, and plants, and old-fashioned lamps with bright shades, and a gray-haired woman moving about in a bay-window watering a fern. It was a picture of a sweet, quiet home, and something of its peace stole out into the November night with its soft lights like a welcome. Murray looked with hungry eyes. There would be beds in that house, and warmth, and a table with good things to eat. The bite he had stolen had but whetted his appetite. How good if he had a right to enter this home as the boy who was expected would do presently; welcomed, a festive supper prepared, perhaps a place where he might earn enough to live, and friends to make life worth the living. It was the first time in his life he had ever felt an urge to work. His father’s business had seemed a bore to him. He had pitied him now and then when he happened to think of it at all, that he was old and had to go down town every day to “work”--not that he had to. Murray knew his father could retire a good many times over and not feel it. But he had pitied him that he was old and therefore had nothing to interest him in life but dull business. Now business suddenly seemed a haven to be desired.

But all this was merely an undercurrent of thought while he was really casting about in his mind how he might rid himself of this pest of a girl, and was furtively observing the street and the lay of the bushes that he might suddenly dodge away and leave her in the darkness. He hesitated to do it lest she might even pursue him, and he felt that in case of fleeing his strength would probably leave him altogether, and he would drop beside some dreary bush and be overtaken.

He could not quite understand his attitude toward this girl. He had been somewhat of a lady-killer, and no girl had held terrors for him in the old life. He knew they always fell for him, and he could take any line he liked and they would follow. Now here was a girl, just a common little country girl, filling him with terror. She seemed to possess almost supernatural power over him, as if she had eyes that could see through to his soul, and would expose him to the scorn of the world if he for one moment angered her and let her get a chance to look into his poor shaken mind. “Murray Van Rensselaer! Why, Murray, what’s the matter with you?” he said to himself. And then, “But I’m not Murray Van Rensselaer any more. I’m a murderer fleeing from justice! I must get away!”

Then right before him, what he thought was a long French window turned into a glass door and opened in front of his unwilling feet, and there stood in the broad burst of light the woman with the gray hair whom he had seen through the window going about the room.

She stood there with a questioning look upon her face, and she had kind eyes--eyes like Mrs. Chapparelle’s--_mother_-eyes. They looked into the darkness of the yard as if they were waiting for him, searching, expecting him, and he found his feet would go no further. They would not take the dash into the darkness of the shrubbery that his situation required. They just stopped and waited. It had been growing upon his consciousness for some time that this thing would happen pretty soon; that he would stop and get caught, and he wondered almost apathetically what he would do then. Just wait, and let them do with him what they pleased?

But Jane’s voice rang out triumphantly:

“He’s come, Mrs. Summers. He didn’t get hurt after all. He came through all right. Isn’t that great? But he’s all messed up and he wants to clean up. I told him I was sure his trunk had come. It has, hasn’t it?”

“Oh, is that you, Jane? Yes, his trunk has come,” said the lady with a smile. Then she turned toward the shivering youth and put out both hands eagerly, taking his cold ones in hers, that felt to him like warm little veined rose-leaves. She drew him without his own volition across the brick terrace into the light.

“So this is Allan Murray!” she said, and her voice was like a mother’s caress. “My dear boy! I’m so glad to have you with me! You don’t know how precious your dear mother was to me! And I shall be so glad if you will let me take her place while you are here, as much as any one could take the place of a woman like your mother!”

Now was the time for him to bolt, of course, if he was ever going to get away, just jerk his hands from her frail touch and bolt! But his feet didn’t seem to understand. They just stood! And his eyes lingered hungrily on her loving ones. He longed, oh, how he wished that this woman really was a friend of his mother--that he had had a mother who could have been a friend of a woman like this one, that he might now be befriended by her. And his hands warmed to the soft vital touch of those little frail rose-leaf hands. They seemed to be warming his very soul, clear to the frightened centre where he knew he was a murderer and an outlaw. But he hadn’t vitality enough left to vanish. He would have been glad if some magic could have made him invisible, or if he could have suddenly been extinguished. But nothing like that happened to men who were in trouble.

Then, his hands and his feet having failed him in this predicament, he tried his lips, and to his surprise words came; fluently from long habit, with quite a nice sound to his voice; modest and grateful and polite and apologetic.

“So kind of you!” he murmured safely, the old vernacular returning from habit to his lips. “But I’m not fit to be touched. It’s been awful, you know--smoke and soot and cinders and broken things. I’m torn and dirty--I’m not fit to be seen!”

“Why, of course!” said the dear lady comprehendingly. “You don’t want me to look you over and see how much you resemble your mother till you’ve had a bath and a shave. I know. I’ve had a boy of my own, you know. He died in the war”--with the breath of a sigh--“But come right up to your room. Everything is all ready, and there’s plenty of hot water. The bath-room is right next to your room, and your room is at the top of the stairs on the right. There are towels and soap and everything you need. If I’d only had your trunk-key I would have presumed to take out your clothes and hang them in the closet for you. It would have been such a pleasure to get ready for a boy again. And it would have taken out the wrinkles. But I’ve my electric iron, all ready, and I can press anything that needs it while you are taking your bath. Suppose I go up with you, and you unlock the trunk and hand me out your suit and I’ll just give it a mite of a pressing while you’re in the bath-room. It won’t take a minute, and I’d love to.”

She led him as she spoke to the foot of the stairs where a soft light above invited to the quiet restfulness of upstairs, and a gleam of a white bath-room lured unspeakably his tired body. But his brain was functioning again. He saw a way of escape from this delightful but fearful situation.

“That’s the trouble,” he said, “I have lost my keys! They were in my bag, and the bag rolled down the embankment into the burning cars.”

“Oh!”

“Ah!” from the two women as he hurried on.

“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I guess I’ll have to forego the supper. It will take too long to get that trunk open and get ready. You two just better go over to the church, and I’ll stick around here and get shaped up for tomorrow. You know I’ve been through a pretty rough time and--”

“I know you have,” broke in the gentle voice firmly, “but I’m afraid you’ll really have to go to that supper. It’s all been prepared as a welcome for you on account of your father and mother, you know, and it’s pretty much for a church and a town to remember and love people like that through thirty years of absence. Besides, Mr. Harper, the president of the bank, will be there, and I don’t suppose it would be a very good thing for your future as the new teller if you were to stay away. You see, really, they are honoring you, and will be terribly disappointed--”

Murray Van Rensselaer began to feel as if he really were the person who was being waited for over at that church supper, and his natural _savoir-faire_ came to his assistance.

“Oh, in that case of course,” he said gallantly, “it wouldn’t do to disappoint them, but how can I possibly manage it? You don’t happen to have a suit of your son’s that you’d be willing to loan me?”

He said it with just the right shade of depreciation and humility. It was a great favor of course to ask for the suit of her dead son. But she flashed a pleasant tender look at him.

“No, dear, I haven’t. I gave them all away where they would be useful. But I am sure we can get that trunk of yours open.”

“Couldn’t we pick the lock?” said Jane, wishing she still wore hairpins. It would be so romantic to lend the hairpin that opened the new hero’s trunk.

But Mrs. Summers opened a little locker seat by the foot of the stairs, and took out a hammer and screw-driver.

“I think we’ll manage with these,” she said pleasantly. “Jane, if you’ll just take those two vases and that maple cake and run over to the church and tell them we’ll be a few minutes late, but we’re coming, then I needn’t stop to go over just yet. Now, Allan Murray, come on!” she said, and started up the stairs.

Murray Van Rensselaer hesitated and looked toward the door, but the reluctant Jane, with arms full of cake and vases, was still filling it, eyeing him blissfully, and there was no escape that way. Perhaps if he once got in the room above with the door locked he could climb from the window and get away in the dark. So he dragged himself up the stairs after his hospitable hostess, and was ushered into a bedroom, the like of which for sweetness and restfulness had never met his eye before.

There were thin white smooth curtains at three low windows, a white bed with plump pillows that looked the best thing in the world for his weary body, a little stand beside it with a shaded lamp, and a Bible. Queer! A Bible! Across the room was a fireplace under a white mantel, and drawn up beside it under a tall shaded lamp was a big luxurious chair with a book-case full of books beside it.

Then he turned to the inner side of the room, and there a bureau with a great mirror suddenly flung his own vision back to him and startled him.

The last time he had seen himself in a mirror was at his tailor’s trying on a new suit that had just been finished for his order. He could see the trim lines of his figure now, the sharp creases of well-pressed garments, the smart cut, the fine texture of the material, his own well-groomed appearance, his handsome careless face, shaven and sure of himself and his world, the grace of his every movement. He had not known he was particularly vain of himself, but now as he gazed on this forlorn, unshaven object, with bloodshot eyes, with coarse, ill-cut garments, and a shapeless cap crushed in his dirty, trembling hand, he was suddenly filled with a great shame.

Mrs. Summers was down on her knees beside a neat trunk, making strong, efficient strokes with a hammer on the lock.

“I don’t belong here!” The words were as audible to his ears as if he had spoken them aloud, and he turned with a swift motion to glide out the door and away; but too late. The lock of the trunk had given, way with a rasping sound, and Mrs. Summers rose with a little smile of triumph on her lips and looked toward him. He could not flee with those kind mother eyes upon him.

“Now, if you’ll help me pull it out from the wall we can open it,” she said pleasantly, and there was nothing for him to do but acquiesce, although he really was very little help with that trunk, for his arms were weak, and when he stooped a great dizziness came over him, so that he almost thought he was going to fall.

Mrs. Summers swung the top of the trunk open deftly.

“We can have Mr. Klingen, the locksmith, up in the morning to fix that lock before we put the trunk away in the attic for the winter,” she said, smiling. “Now, which is the suit you want to wear tonight? This blue one right on top? We’ve got to hurry a little because it’s getting late. And I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve got three big pans of scalloped oysters down stairs piping hot and just ready to be eaten, and I want you to help me carry them over to the church. They’re a surprise. They don’t know they’re going to have scalloped oysters. They think they’re only having roast lamb and mashed potatoes, but I just thought I’d have a little celebration on my own hook, so I made these without telling. Do you like scalloped oysters?”

“Do I like scalloped oysters?” beamed Murray, forgetting his rôle of outlaw, and realizing his empty stomach. “Lead me to ’em.”

His hostess smiled appreciatively.

“All right, you hurry then, and I’ll have your clothes up in a jiffy! Here’s the bath-room, and this is the hot water.” She turned the faucet on swiftly. “And this wheel controls the shower. Bob always liked a shower. Do you?”

“I certainly do!” said Murray fervently.

“Well, now, hurry up! I’ll have your suit up in no time. Let’s run a race!”

She ran smiling down the stairs as if she were an old comrade, and he stood still in the cosey little bath-room with the steam of the nice hot water rising in the white tub, and what seemed like a perfect army of clean, luxurious towels with big embroidered S’s on them, and Turkish wash-rags with blue crocheted edges, and cakes of sweet-smelling soap all calling him to the bath that his aching body so much desired, and yet now was the time when he ought to be going! He _must_ be going!

He glanced back from the door and down the stairs. He could just see an ironing-board beyond the dining-room door, right in the doorway, and the blue suit lying across it, the trousers folded in the most approved manner, and there was her step. She was standing right in the doorway with the iron in her hand, and facing toward the stairs! He could not get away without passing her, at least not by going down the stairs. And well--why not take a bath? He certainly needed it. There would be a way to get away later. And oh, scalloped oysters, and those good things he had seen through the windows! But of course he couldn’t go to that supper! Still, there was the bath all ready, and no telling when he would ever get a chance again.

So he locked the door and began swiftly to take off the alien garments that in the three weeks of his wanderings he had managed to acquire. At least, here was a bath, and why not take the goods the gods provided?

IX

Murray Van Rensselaer was roused from the relaxation which the luxury of soap and water had brought to him by the sound of Mrs. Summers’ voice and a tap at the bath-room door.

“Your suit is ready on the bed, and I took the liberty of laying out some underclothes and things which I found in the trunk. Will it take you long to dress? I don’t want my oysters to get tough.”

“I’ll be with you in no time now,” he called gaily, as he scrubbed away feebly with one of the big Turkish towels. He was beginning to realize all he was in for. Where would he get shaving things? He was not used to shaving himself often either. He had depended on his man so long. But perhaps that trunk would have some things in it. Darn it all! Suppose that suit didn’t fit after she had taken so much trouble pressing it. He would simply have to make a dive out of the window if it didn’t. Or stay. He could say they had sent the wrong trunk! Only how would she account for the fact that he hadn’t noticed it when she took out the suit? Well, he needn’t cross the bridge till he came to it.

He gathered up his coarse garments, enveloped himself in a towel, and with a hasty survey of the hall, made a dive into “his room,” feeling as if he had already weathered several storms.

There on the bed lay garments, and fearfully he put forth his hand and examined them. They were pleasant garments, smooth and fine; not perhaps so fine as the heir of the house of Van Rensselaer had been wont to wear, and still, good enough to feel luxurious after the ones he had picked up by the way on his journeys, and used as a disguise. He climbed tentatively into them and found that they fitted very well--a little loose on his lean body, grown leaner now with enforced privation, but still a very respectable fit.

Everything was there, even to necktie and collar, even to buttons put into the shirt. What a mother that woman was! Fancy his mother doing a thing like that, putting buttons in a shirt! And hunting out all those garments just as if she had been a man! Well, she was great! He had a passing regret that he could not remain and enjoy her longer, but at least he was thankful for this brief touch with a life like that. Well, he would remember it, and some time, when--no! There would never be any time when he could, of course. He was a murderer and an outlaw. But if there had been, she would have been a sweet memory to put by to think of, a kind of ideal in a world that knew no ideals. There had been fellows in college, a few, that looked as if they had homes and mothers like this. He hadn’t realized then what made them different, but this must have been it. They had homes, and mothers. He began to envy the chap whose name was Allan Murray. What a winter he would have in this room, sitting by that fire reading those books. He had never been much of a reader himself, but now as he slid his feet into the shoes that were a whole size too large for him, and glanced up at the comfortable chair and the light and the gleaming blue and red and gold of the backs of those books, he thought it might be a pleasant occupation. In fact, almost anything that kept one at home and gave one rest and peace seemed heaven to him now.

The bath had refreshed him and given him a brief spurt of strength, and now that he was again attired in clean garments, and looked fairly like a respectable young man once more, his courage rose. He had managed the old-fashioned razor very well indeed for one as unskilled in caring for himself as he was, and his clean-shaven face looked back at him now from the big old mahogany-framed mirror with a fairly steady glance. He wasn’t so bad-looking after all. There were heavy shadows under his eyes, and he looked thin and tired, and there was an almost peevish resemblance to his mother in his face that he had never noticed before; but still, nobody would ever look upon him just casually and take him for a murderer. And here, for the time being, he was protected by another man’s identity and name. If that chap Allan Murray only didn’t turn up in the midst of proceedings why perhaps he could even venture to get a little dinner, if things didn’t get too thick. Of course he could always bolt if there were any signs of the other fellow coming to life. It was to be hoped that he at least had sustained a sprained ankle in the wreck that would keep him till morning, or till a late train that night. He hated the idea of having to go off with the other fellow’s clothes. They might be some he was fond of, and maybe he couldn’t afford to buy many. But he had a good job ahead of him, and he’d probably pull through--teller of a bank! That must bring a tidy salary. And anyhow, if a fellow was a murderer why not be a thief also? One was an outlaw anyway. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Besides, would that other fellow stop at a suit of clothes if his life was at stake? And the reputation of his fine old family? I ask you.

His meditations were broken by a pleasant voice chanting:

“Are you ready, Allan Murray? My oysters will be tough if they have to wait another minute!” And there was that in her voice that made him respond cheerily much in the same spirit:

“Yes, I’m coming, Mrs. Summers. Be with you right immediately.” And that was the first that his real inner consciousness knew or had admitted to it, that he really meant to dare to go to that supper.