Part 15
She said the words with an indescribable spluttering sneer, sidewise from her mouth. It is so a lioness may snarl and spit before she leaps.
“Her--lord and master--found it out, and waited up to catch them; and coming upon her alone, taunted her. Taunted her, and struck her----”
“Look!” she cried, and tore the diamonds from her breast, and rent the laces, and wrenched the fastenings apart. A new red weal that seemed to throb and pulse with her respiration stood out from the whiteness of her bosom.
“Tell me,” she whispered hoarsely, “would it have been murder if she had killed that man? Which were the more courageous thing--to kill him, or to step back into her living hell? If she had killed him, would she have regretted it?”
I know not what I might have answered; but at that instant three raps sounded distinctly upon the window-shutter. I leaped to my feet. Then Charles had come!
An instant she stood as if stricken to a statue in mid-rage.
And then she cried out, and there was a furious triumph in her voice--a kind of joy that matched itself to, and blended with, the fierce and reckless beauty of her shaken jewels, possessed her.
“Charles,” she cried, “come in! Come in!”
Slowly the window opened and a man entered. He drew back in amaze at the sight of me, and turned to her with an air that was all one question.
“I thought you would never come,” she said.
He was a big blond man, and as he turned from the one to the other of us, with his helpless, inquiring face, and eyes that blinked from the outer darkness, he looked oddly like a sleepy schoolboy who has been awakened from an afternoon nap by the teacher's ruler.
“Katherine,” he finally stammered, “what is this? Who is this man?” He passed his hand across his forehead as one may do who doubts whether or not he dreams; and walked towards the table.
“Charles,” she said, “I have shot the old man.” I have seen a beef stricken on the head with a mallet look at its executioner with big eyes for an instant before the quivering in its limbs set in and it sank to the ground. So this Charles looked with wide, stupid eyes, and shivered, and dropped the great bulk of him into a chair. His head sank upon his hand. But finally he looked up, and spoke in a confused voice, as if through a mist. “Good God, Katherine, what do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, framing the words slowly, as one speaks a lesson to a child, “I mean that I have killed the old man.”
And moving swiftly across the room she flung back the heavy red curtain at the end of it; and I saw the answer to my many questionings.
The body lay upon its back, with one arm bent, the hand across the chest, and the fingers spread wide. The face was that of a man of sixty or thereabouts, but, indeed, so deeply lined and wrinkled and pouched with evil living that the age even in life must have been hard to determine. Blood was coagulating about a bullet wound in the temple, and there were powder burns on the forehead. The shot had been fired at close range, evidently from the weapon with which I had been confronted on my entrance; and the sound had been so muffled in the curtain that it was little wonder that the servants in the rooms above, and across the house, had not heard it. He had a monstrous nose, that man upon the floor, and it must have been a red nose in life; but now it was of a bluish-white color, like the skin of an old and scrawny fowl. That, and the thin, drawn-up legs, and the big flabby paunch of the thing, robbed the sight, for me, of all the solemnity which (we are taught) exudes from the presence of death. It made me sick; and yet I cackled with sheer hysteria, too; or rather my strained nerves jarred and laughed, if not myself. It was too damned grotesque.
Herself, she did not look at it. She looked at the man called Charles; and he, with a shudder, lifted his slow gaze from the thing behind the curtain to her face.
She was the first to speak, and the terrible joy with which she had bade Charles to enter still dominated her accents.
“Don't you understand, Charles? This man,” and she indicated me with the pistol, “this man takes the blame of this. He is a thief. He came just after--just afterwards. And I held him for your coming. Don't you see? Don't you see? His presence clears us of this deed!”
“_Us?_” queried Charles.
“Not _us?_” she asked.
“My God, Katherine,” he burst forth, “why did you do this thing? And you would heap murder on murder! Why, why, why did you do it? Why splash this blood upon our love? A useless thing to do! We might have--we might have------”
He broke down and sobbed. And then: “God knows the old man never did me any harm,” he said. “And she'd accuse the thief, too!” he cried a moment later, with a kind of wondering horror.
“Listen, Charles,” she said, and moved towards him; and yet with a sidelong glance she still took heed of me. “Listen, and understand me. We must act quickly--but after it happened it was necessary that I should see you before we could act. This man came to rob; here is his pistol, and in that satchel by the window are his tools, no doubt. He may tell what wild tale he will; but who will believe him? You go as you came; I give him up--and we--we wait awhile, and then the rest of life is ours.”
I suppose that it is given to few men to hear their death plotted in their presence. But I had come to the pass by this time where it struck me as an impersonal thing. I listened; but somehow the full sense of what she said, as affecting me, did not then impinge upon my brain with waking force. I stood as if in a trance; I stood and looked on at those two contending personalities, that were concerned just now with the question of my life or death, as if I were a spectator in a theater--as if it were someone else of whom they spoke.
“Go,” she cried to Charles again, “and I will give him up.”
“Katherine,” he said, “and you would do this thing?”
“Why?” she retorted, “what is this man's life beside mine? His soul is dead! I tell you, Charles, that I have come through Hell alive to gain one ray of happiness! But go!--and leave the rest to me.”
And she grasped the bell cord and pulled it. Pulled it again and again. The sound wandered crazily through what remote corridors I know not.
She made a step towards him. He leaped to his feet with an oath, with loathing in his eyes, shrank back from her, and held out a hand as if to ward off some unclean thing.
Bewilderment lined her face. She groped to understand. And then, as the full significance of his gesture came home to her, she winced and swayed as if from a blow; and the pistol dropped from her loosened grasp to the floor.
“You--you abandon me?” she said slowly. “You desert me, then? Love, Love, think how I have loved you that I did this thing! And is what I have suffered--what I have done--still to purchase--nothing?”
She pleaded for my death; but I hope that I shall never again see on any human face the look of despair that was on hers. I pitied her!
Heavy feet on the stairway woke me from my trance. Unregarded of them both I grasped my pistol from the floor and sprang for the window. A door opened somewhere above, and a voice asked:
“You rang, Ma'am?”
From without the window I looked back into the room. She stood with outstretched hands--hands that reached upward from the pit of torment, my fancy told me--and pleaded for a little love. “In all this world is there no little ray of love for me?”--it was so my imagination rather than my hearing translated the slight movement of her lips. And while she and the man called Charles stood thus at gaze with one another, the servant spoke again from the stairway.
“You rang?” he asked.
She slowly straightened. She steadied herself. And with her eyes still fixed upon those of Charles she cried:
“Yes, yes, I rang, Jones! Your master is--dead. Your master's murdered! And there, there,” and she stabbed an accusing finger at her erstwhile lover, “there is the man who murdered him!”
And then I turned from the window and ran from that house; and as I ran I saw the Dawn, like a wild, fair woman, walk up the eastern sky with blood-stained feet.
XIII.--Words and Thoughts
[A Play in One Act]
Characters:
Cousin Fanny Hemlock
John Speaker
Mary Speaker
John Thinker
Mary Thinker
Maid
Period, the present. Place, any American city.
The Scene _represents two drawing rooms, exact duplicates, furnished alike to the smallest detail. Either room might be the reflection of the other in a mirror. Each occupies half of the stage. The division line between them is indicated, towards the hack of the stage, by two pianos, which sit hack to back at the center of the hack drop. This division is carried by the pianos a quarter or a third of the way towards the footlights. The division is further suggested, towards the front of the stage, hy a couple of settees or couches, which also sit back to back._
John Speaker and Mary Speaker _remain all the time in the room at the right of the stage. They are not aware of_ John Thinker _and_ Mary Thinker, _who are, throughout the play, in the room at the left. The_ Thinkers, _however, are aware of the_ Speakers.
_In make-up, looks, dress, etc., the two_Johns _are precisely alike. The same is true of_ Mary Speaker and Mary Thinker. _The_ Johns _are conventional-looking, prosperous Americans of from 38 to 40 years of age. The two_ Marys _are a few years younger._
Cousin Fanny Hemlock _is a dried-up, querulous old woman of seventy._
_The Curtain, on rising, discovers the two_ Johns _and the two_ Marys. _It is between 7 and 8 in the evening; they are all in evening dress, and are preparing to go out, putting on their gloves, etc., etc._
John Speaker [_Picking up over coat._]
Are you ready, Mary dear?
Mary Speaker [_Holding out a gloved hand._]
Quite, John dear. Button this for me, won't you, love?
John Speaker [_Busy with glove._]
It's been nearly a year, hasn't it, since we've been out together of an evening? I'm afraid Cousin Fanny is terribly trying on you at times, Mary.
Mary Speaker
You know, John, I don't consider her a trial. I _love_ Cousin Fanny.
John Thinker
[_Busy with Mary Thinker's glove._]
The old cat's letting us off to-night, for a wonder, Mary. She's a horrible affliction!
Mary Thinker [_Passionately._]
Affliction is no word. She makes my life a living hell! I hate her!
John Speaker
[_Helping Mary Speaker on with coat, which action is simultaneously imitated hy John and Mary Thinker._]
Well, we must bear with her gently, Mary. I am afraid poor Cousin Fanny will not be with us many more years.
John Thinker [_To Mary Thinker._]
One comfort is she'll die before long!
Mary Speaker [_To John Speaker._]
Oh, John, you don't think Cousin Fanny's going to die, do you?
Mary Thinker [_To John Thinker._]
Don't fool yourself about her dying soon, John. There's no such luck!
[_Enter Maid through door in right back to John and Mary Speaker, who look up. John and Mary Thinker also notice entrance of Maid and listen._]
Maid
[_To Mary Speaker._]
Miss Hemlock sent me to inquire whether you were going out to-night.
Mary Thinker [_To John Thinker, quickly._]
The old cat's up to something!
Mary Speaker [_To Maid_.]
Yes. We were just starting. Does Miss Hemlock want anything? I will go to her if she wishes to speak with me.
Maid
She said, in case you were going out, that I was to tell you _not_ to do so.
Mary Speaker
_Not_ to do so?
Maid
Yes, ma'am; that's what she said. She said in case you were getting ready to go out, you were to change your plans and stop at home.
John Speaker [_To Maid._]
Not to do so? But, surely, there must be some mistake!
[_Maid shakes her head slowly, deliberately, looking fixedly at John Speaker; and while she is doing so John Thinker says to Mary Thinker_:]
John Thinker
Some malicious idea is working in her head tonight!
Maid
[_To John Speaker._]
No, sir, no mistake. She said very plainly and distinctly that you were not to go out tonight.
[_Maid bows and exits._]
John Speaker
Cousin Fanny is not so well to-night, I'm afraid, dear, or she would certainly have put her request in some other way.
Mary Speaker
If I didn't love Cousin Fanny, John, I would be tempted to believe that she deliberately tries at times to annoy us.
John Speaker
Cousin Fanny is old, and we must remember that she is very fond of us. We will have to bear with her.
[_John Speaker takes his top coat and his wife's coat> and lays them on a chair, while John Thinker, who has been frowning and brooding, flings himself into chair and says to Mary Thinker_:]
John Thinker
For cold-blooded, devilish nerve in a man's own house, Cousin Fanny certainly takes the cake, Mary!
Mary Thinker
She gets more spiteful every day. She knows her power, and the more childish she gets the more delight she takes in playing tyrant.
John Thinker
Cheer up, it isn't forever! If she doesn't change her will before she dies, it means fifteen thousand dollars a year. That's worth a little trouble!
Mary Thinker
You're away at your office all day. I'm here at home with her. It is I who catch all the trouble!
John Thinker
Well, after all, she's more nearly related to you, Mary, than she is to me.
Mary Thinker
She's my mother's third cousin, if you call _that_ near!
John Thinker
Well, then, she's my father's fifth cousin, if you call _that_ near!
Mary Speaker
What were you thinking of, John, dear?
John Speaker
Nothing... nothing, Mary... except that
Cousin Fanny is a poor, lonely old soul, after all.
Mary Speaker
Poor, lonely old woman, indeed--it's odd, isn't it, that she is related to both you and me, John?
John Speaker
She's closer to you than to me, Mary.
Mary Speaker
You couldn't call a fourth or fifth cousin very near, John.
John Speaker
It almost seems as if you were trying to deny the blood tie, Mary!
Mary Speaker
No, John, dear, blood is thicker than water.
John Speaker Thicker than water!
John Thinker
Relations are the most unpleasant persons on earth. I hate cousins.
Mary Thinker
Especially cousins who are also cousins-in-law! John Speaker
But even if she were only _my_ relation, Mary, and not related to _you_ at all, I know enough of your sweet nature to know that she would always be welcome in our home in spite of her little idiosyncrasies.
[_Enter Cousin Fanny, to John and Mary Speaker, through door right hack. She coughs as she steps forward, leaning on a cane, and puts her hand to her chest, stop-ping. Then as she comes forward, she stumbles. John and Mary Speaker leap forward, put their arms behind her, and, supporting and leading her, conduct her tenderly down stage to chair at center of room they are in. John and Mary Thinker, near together at table in their room, lean forward eagerly and watch this entrance, and when the old woman stumbles, John Thinker says to Mary Thinker, nudging her:_]
John Thinker
You see?
Mary Thinker
See what?
John Thinker
She totters!
Mary Thinker
She stumbled.
John Thinker
She's getting weaker.
[_Mary Speaker tenderly kisses Cousin Fanny, as Mary Thinker says_:]
Mary Thinker
Weaker! She'll live to be a hundred and ten!
John Thinker
Not she!
Mary Thinker
The mean kind always do!
John Speaker
[_Tenderly, to Cousin Fanny, arranging cushion behind her._]
Can't I get you a wrap, Cousin Fanny?
Mary Speaker
Don't you feel a draught, Cousin Fanny?
Mary Thinker
[_Bitterly, frowning at other group_.]
No draught will ever harm her!
Cousin Fanny
[_To John Speaker, sneeringly; petulantly._] You're mighty anxious about a _wrap_, John! But you were thinking of going out and leaving me practically alone in the house.
John Speaker [_Deprecatingly._ ]
But, Cousin Fanny----
Cousin Fanny [_Interrupting_.]
Don't deny it! Don't take the trouble to deny it! Don't lie about it! You can't lie to me! Don't I see your evening clothes? And Mary, too! Both of you were going out--_both_ of you!
Mary Speaker
Cousin Fanny, we gave it up when we learned that you wanted us to stop at home with you. Didn't we, John?
Cousin Fanny
[_Querulously, childishly, shrilly._]
Don't deny it, Mary, don't deny it! Don't excuse yourself! I can see you were going out! I can see your evening clothes!
Mary Speaker
We'll go and change to something else, won't we, John?
[_She is going, as she speaks, but Cousin Fanny cries out_:]
Cousin Fanny
Stop!
[_Mary Speaker stops, and Cousin Fanny continues_:]
Don't take them off. I don't want you to take them off. What do you want to take them off for? Are they too good for _me_ to see? Are they too grand for me to look at? Ain't I as good as any one you'd find if you went out? Heh?
Mary Speaker
Cousin Fanny, I didn't mean that. I meant----
Cousin Fanny [_Interrupting._]
I know what you meant! Don't tell me what you meant, Mary. You meant to slip out and leave me here alone, both of you. It's lucky I caught you in time. It's lucky I have money! It's lucky I don't have to put up with the treatment most old folks get. I'd starve, if I were poor! I'd die of hunger and neglect!
[_She begins to cry, and Mary Speaker says_:]
Mary Speaker No, no, no, Cousin Fanny!
[_Mary Speaker soothes her, in pantomime, and pets her, trying to take her hands away from her face, Cousin Fanny resisting, like a spoiled and spiteful child. John Speaker, behind Cousin Fanny and his wife, walks up and down, with his eyes on them, running his hand nervously and excitedly through his hair. While this pantomime goes on, John and Mary Thinker are watching and saying _:]
John Thinker
This is to be one of Cousin Fanny's pleasant evenings!
Mary Thinker
This happens a dozen times a day.
John Thinker She's not really crying.
Mary Thinker
Pretence! She works it up to be unpleasant.
John Thinker The old she-devil!
John Speaker
[_Taking Cousin Fanny's hand._]
You know, Cousin Fanny, that we try to do our duty by you.
Cousin Fanny [_Flinging his hand off._]
You try to do your duty by my money! I know!
I see! You talk of love and duty, but it's my money you want! But I may fool you--I may fool you yet. It's not too late to change my will. It's not too late to leave it all to charity!
[_She speaks these lines with a cunning leer, and John Thinker, nudging Mary Thinker and pointing to her, says:_]
John Thinker The old cat is capable of it, too!
John Speaker [_To Cousin Fanny_.]
If you should leave your money to charity, Cousin Fanny, you would find it made no difference with us. You know blood is thicker than water, Cousin Fanny!
Cousin Fanny [_Shrewdly, maliciously_.]
So is sticky flypaper!
John Speaker
Come, come, you don't doubt the genuineness of our affection, do you, Cousin Fanny? You've known me from my boyhood, Cousin Fanny, and you've lived with us for ten years. You ought to know us by this time! You ought to know us in ten years!
Mary Thinker Ten years of torture!
John Thinker It can't last much longer!
John Speaker
[_Who has taken her hand again, and has been patting it as a continuation of his last speech, and looking at her fondly_.]
You trust us, don't you, Cousin Fanny? You really are sure of our affection, aren't you?
Cousin Fanny
[_To John Speaker. She shows that she really is willing to be convinced; she searches their faces wistfully; she is pathetically eager._ ]
John, John, you really _do_ care for me, don't you? [_She takes a hand of each._]
It isn't _all_ on account of my money, is it? If you knew I hadn't a cent, you'd still be good to me, wouldn't you?
John Speaker and Mary Speaker [_Together._]
Yes, yes, Cousin Fanny!
Cousin Fanny
If I lost it all; if I told you I'd lost it all, you'd be just the same, wouldn't you?
[_John Speaker and Mary Speaker exchange glances over her head, and John Speaker drops her hand, while John Thinker grabs Mary Thinker excitedly by the arm and says quickly_:]
John Thinker
My God, you don't suppose she's really _lost_ it, do you?
Mary Thinker
No! This is just one of her cunning spells now. She can be as crafty as a witch.
Cousin Fanny
If I hadn't a cent you'd still care for me, wouldn't you, Mary?
Mary Speaker
Why, Cousin Fanny, you know I would!
Cousin Fanny
But I'm hard on you at times. I'm unjust. I don't mean to be spiteful, but I _am_ spiteful. When we get old we get suspicious of people. We get suspicious of everybody. And suspicion makes us spiteful and unjust. I know I'm not easy to live with, Mary.
Mary Speaker [_Kissing Cousin Fanny._]
You get such strange notions, Cousin Fanny!
John Thinker
And such true ones, Cousin Fanny!
Cousin Fanny
Tell me the truth, Mary. You find me a trial, Mary. You and John find me a trial!
Mary Speaker and John Speaker [_Together._ ]
Never, Cousin Fanny!
Mary Thinker and John Thinker [_Together._ ]
Always, Cousin Fanny!
Cousin Fanny And that is the truth?
John Speaker, John Thinker, Mary Speaker and Mary Thinker [_All together._ ]
And that is the truth, Cousin Fanny!
Cousin Fanny
You don't know how suspicious one gets!
Mary Speaker [_Petting her_.]
But suspicion never stays long in your good heart, Cousin Fanny. There's no room for it there, I know. But don't you think you'd better go to bed now? Let me call the maid.
Cousin Fanny
[_Rousing up in chair; suspicion and meanness all awake again_.]
To bed? Why to bed? Why do you want to pack me off to bed? I know! I know why! You want me to go to bed so you two can talk about me. So you can talk me over! So you can speculate on how long I will live. I know you! I know what you talk about when I'm not around! I know what you've been waiting and hoping for the last ten years!
[_Begins to cry._]
Well, you won't have long to wait now. The time's almost come! I feel it's almost here. You'll get the money soon enough!
Mary Speaker [_Soothing her_.]
There, there, Cousin Fanny, don't go on like this!
You know it isn't true--you know you'll live ten years yet!
[_John Speaker runs his hands through his hair and looks silently at Mary Speaker, and John Thinker, with the same gesture, says to Mary Thinker_:]
John Thinker
If I thought she'd live ten years yet----!
[_Pauses._]
Mary Thinker
Well, if you thought she'd live ten years yet----?
John Thinker [_With a gesture of de pair._ ]
My God--ten years like the last ten years! Ten years! Talk about earning money! If it hasn't been earned ten times over!
Mary Thinker
[_Fiercely._]
You see it mornings and evenings. I have it all day long, and every day. I've had it for ten years. I go nowhere, I see no one. I have no pleasures. I have no friends; I've lost my friends. I'm losing my youth. I'm losing my looks. I'm losing my very soul. I'm shedding my life's blood drop by drop to keep that querulous fool alive--just merely alive! I'm tired of it! I'm sick of it! I'm desperate! I'm dying from her, I tell you!
Mary Speaker
[_Still soothing Cousin Fanny, but speaking with one hand nervously clutching her own head as she does so_.]
Come, come, Cousin Fanny--you'd better go to bed now!
Cousin Fanny
I won't go to bed yet! I want my medicine. It's time for my medicine now. I won't go to bed till I've had my sleeping tablets.
John Speaker
Where are they, Cousin Fanny?
Cousin Fanny
On top of the bookcase there. The small phial. [_John Speaker goes to the bookcase and begins to rummage for phial, while John Thinker says, meditatively_:]
John Thinker
I suppose if one ever gave her the wrong medicine by mistake it would be called by some ugly name!
Mary Thinker
People like her never get the wrong medicine given to them, and never take it by mistake themselves.
John Speaker [_Finding bottle; examining it_.]
See here, Cousin Fanny, didn't you have one of these about an hour ago? Didn't I see you take one of them right after dinner?
Cousin Fanny [_Peevishly._]
I don't know. I don't remember. I want one now, anyhow. My nerves are on the jump. You have got all my nerves on the jump. I'll take one, and nap here in the chair.