ONLY TOO TRUE.
Mr. Jacobs was as punctual as usual in his early attendance in the
box-office of the Varieties on the morning after the first appearance
of the Bryan Duval troupe, when he was lightly touched on the
shoulder, and, turning round, was astonished to perceive the great
London star himself.
'Ha, ha, my dear boy, it is you, is it?' cried Mr. Jacobs, with
unctuous familiarity. 'Looking after business--always got an eye to
the dollars--come down to see how the places are going? Well, you need
not look so anxious about it; we're going right ahead, we are, this
time.'
'It wasn't for that, Jacobs,' said Bryan, with a faint smile. 'I want
to look at the sheet for last night. I want to see what names certain
places were taken in.'
'O, that's the game, is it?' said Mr. Jacobs, handing him the sheet
required. 'Want to see whether any of your old flames came to welcome
you back. Hallo! what's the matter?' he cried, as Duval uttered a
short groan.
'Nothing,' said Bryan; 'nothing at all. As Jacobs looked up at him he
saw his finger resting motionless on a certain portion of the box
sheet. 'Thank you, I won't intrude upon you any more. Good-morning,
Jacobs;' and he sauntered off.
'Mrs. Alston E. Griswold,' murmured Jacobs to himself, reading the
name underneath which Bryan's finger had been fixed. 'That's it;
there's the mark of his black glove on the sheet now. Alston Griswold?
Why, that's the name of one of your Wall-street customers, with a fine
up-town house and--ah, Bryan, my boy, your propensities will get you
into mischief one of these days.'
'All doubt is at an end now,' said Bryan, as he walked up to the
hotel, 'and Clara was right. The case seems to me even darker and
worse than she seems to think at present. It is lucky that she has a
head upon her shoulders, for I shall have to take her into
consultation.'
Thereupon he despatched an elderly Irishman to Miss Montressor's room,
with a message intimating his desire to be allowed access to her as
soon as possible. Bryan Duval's messenger returned with an affirmatory
answer to his inquiry whether Miss Montressor could let him see her;
they had not yet met on that morning, and she was in a high state of
expectation of what the interview might bring forth.
Miss Montressor had been thinking intently on the subject in
discussion during all her waking moments since she and Bryan Duval had
parted on the preceding night. It had not kept her from sleeping; her
nerves were in too good order and her constitution was too sound for
her to be subjected to inconveniences of that sort by any abstract
cause of emotion; but she had thought over it until she fell asleep,
and it had recurred to her with her first consciousness on waking. She
had endeavoured, in anticipation of Bryan Duval's possible line of
interrogation, to recall everything that had been said during the
conversation between herself and Mr. Foster on the terrace at
Richmond, and, strangely as she considered it, she found this very
difficult to do. If Miss Montressor had understood the laws of mental
processes better, she would have known that this difficulty was of
ordinary occurrence, and to be anticipated in her case. She was not in
the habit of thinking about anything systematically, and a beginning
in this direction is no easier than any other mental process directed
with intention. So that Miss Montressor had got herself rather into a
muddle between what had really been said by Mr. Foster and her general
impression of the interview, when she found Bryan Duval in the small
ante-room in which the residents at the hotel usually received their
friends.
Neither was insensible to the gravity and incongruity of the occasion.
That two strangers, come to New York in the trifling and superficial
character of actors, should be--to their own almost indubitable
persuasion, and quite unsuspected by the public--able to supply the
key of one of the most terrible mysteries of crime which had for a
long time startled and disturbed society, was a circumstance full of
oddity and interest that they appreciated to the full. Literally
nothing could have influenced, impressed, surprised, or agitated Duval
out of the instincts of the dramatist who combines, and the actor who
reproduces, the situations supplied by human events. When this story
should be complete in its reality, it would find its way to the
pigeon-holes in which Bryan Duval's materials, the pabulum of his
ever-active brain, were stored up, with the regularity, in order and
in date, of a privately edited edition of the _Annual Register_. In
due, not in undue time--Bryan Duval was never so wanting in taste and
judgment as to incur the charge of indecent haste--this drama of real
life would no doubt be put upon the stage, with charming accessories
of scenery, decoration, and padding-out. Bryan Duval saw his way to it
already, though as yet the knowledge of the murderer and his motive
were wanting to the story.
It had occupied his thoughts also almost exclusively; and though he
had been trained to habits of mental precision, and the following of
clues to human nature altogether beyond Miss Montressor's ken and
capacity, he had not reached a much clearer state of mind than that in
which his fair friend was about to join him. Bryan Duval was a man of
too much natural keenness and too much acquired experience to accept
generalities as bases for argument, or to seek conclusions in them.
While he constructed a system with the skill and minuteness of a
Procureur Impérial, he did not lend his judgment to one hypothesis,
and turn the facts to fit it. Without ignoring or depreciating the
influence of women in all human events, he regarded the 'Who is she?'
which has become axiomatic as rather smart than sound, and was
disposed to believe that dollars are quite as often to be found as
women at the bottom of the crimes, as they assuredly are of the
misfortunes, of men. In the present instance, if anything could be
said to induce an explanation in the midst of the mystery of this
crime, it was Bryan Duval's conviction that money was in question. Mr.
Foster's private business in London; the disguise about his name,
which he had avowed, but not explained; the perfectly conceivable
rivalry and envy which his expedition might have excited--all these
were plain to the mind of Bryan Duval as he pondered the matter, and
they pointed each and all to another conclusion than that of 'Who is
she?' Of Mr. Foster, or, as he had almost come to name the murdered
man in his thoughts, Alston Griswold, he had not known very much, and
their term of acquaintance had been short; but it had sufficed to
create a strong regard for him, and Bryan Duval had formed a pretty
accurate estimate of the New York merchant's character.
'An honest, true-hearted fellow,' said Duval to himself, 'and
profoundly in love with his wife, who seems to have been equally
attached to him. There was no woman in this case--no woman on either
side the Atlantic. The murderer must be looked for in the ordinary
category of ruffians, or if it is a put-up job, the wire-puller is
here in New York among his rivals in business.'
The scene and circumstances of the crime, imperfectly as they could be
gathered from the newspaper reports, made a very vivid picture to the
mind's eye of the dramatist, accustomed to seize upon salient points;
and he thought he discerned in them tokens of a surprise and a
discovery, rather than of the common assault of a robber.
'Why should he have gone with any man into an empty warehouse?' Bryan
Duval asked himself. 'May he not have been enticed thither by a
promise of information of some kind? May he not have been suddenly set
upon and murdered, because he refused to give certain information?'
The circumstance of Mr. Foster having lingered in Liverpool later than
the departure of the train by which he mentioned to Duval it was his
intention to return to London, did not make any impression upon the
actor's mind.
'Business men have business matters to attend to in many places,' he
thought. 'If the poor fellow strained a point a little in letting me
suppose that he had nothing to do and nobody to see in Liverpool, and
only came down on our account, it was a harmless little bit of
compliment, and I daresay he did. No man is bound to tell a far closer
friend than I was _all_ about any matter in which he is concerned, and
this one may have had an extensive connection in Liverpool, and lots
to do there for anything I know to the contrary. I have, to be sure,
no very solid grounds for my belief; but it is certainly more than an
impression that this poor fellow's business in England lies at the
root of this matter, and that there is no woman in the case.'
The words were passing through his mind as Miss Montressor entered the
room.
'You were only too right,' said Bryan Duval, as Miss Montressor
entered the room with face full of inquiry: 'the lady who occupied the
seat you described to me last night was indeed Mrs. Alston Griswold;
here is the memorandum from the box-office, giving the name and
address. This is certainty on one side of the question; certainty on
the other will, I fear, be only too readily attained.'
Miss Montressor sat down and looked, as she felt, very much concerned.
The condition of the unconscious wife appealed at once to her womanly
and her artistic feelings; the truth and the situation alike struck
her as deeply impressive.
'I shall communicate at once with the city authorities,' said Bryan
Duval; 'it will be impossible for me to keep out of this sad affair,
and it is manifestly my duty to volunteer all the information it is in
my power to give. I suppose there will be some person who will be
deputed to break this terrible news to her?'
'No, no,' said Miss Montressor; 'do not act in the matter in that way.
What do the ends of justice matter in comparison with the wife who is
widowed in such a horrible manner, and who knows nothing of the
calamity which has befallen her? Let them wait; let us first try to
find some personal friend of the poor thing, and tell him.'
'Of course,' said Bryan Duval, 'that would be the proper line of
action if we knew anything about a personal friend; but we must first
discover the identity of a person of the sort, and how am I to do that
except by communicating with the authorities? Very likely the
officials with whom it will be my duty to confer may all, or some of
them, be acquainted with Mrs. Griswold. Full particulars of the murder
cannot be known until the arrival of the mail, and it is just possible
that no suspicion may arise, unless I awaken it, that Mr. Foster is
the well-known Mr. Griswold I now firmly believe him to be. To keep
the knowledge of such a possibility from the police authorities here
for a moment longer than it can be avoided may seriously impede action
on the other side, as it must prevent the supplying of information
from thence.'
Miss Montressor had listened to Bryan Duval with a troubled
countenance and an equally troubled heart. A line of action was
suggesting itself to her, which had the full consent of her judgment
and her feelings, but a consideration of self-interest was striving to
withhold her from propounding it. She knew that the means of acquiring
the information which would enable Bryan Duval to communicate direct
with some acquaintance or friend of Mrs. Griswold's lay ready at her
hand, but she hesitated to use it. Bess was that means--it would cost
her something to avail herself of Bess. The struggle in Miss
Montressor's mind was not lasting. The kindly remembrance of the man
who had treated her with such gentlemanly consideration, with such
unfeigned respect, a thought of the fair woman whom she had seen on
the previous night and her pathetic ignorance, overcame her
misgivings.
'I think,' she said, 'I can supply you with a hint which may change
your view of the most judicious course for you to pursue. Do you
remember that I told you yesterday that I had a friend who knew Mrs.
Griswold, and had given me indications by which I recognised her--or,
as I thought, recognised Mrs. Foster--at the theatre?'
'Yes, I remember,' said Bryan Duval. 'How stupid I am not to have
remembered it sooner! I suppose you can put yourself in communication
with her?'
'Easily,' said Miss Montressor. 'She is'--here she hesitated for one
last moment--'she is in a very humble station--no higher than that of
nurse to Mrs. Griswold's child.'
'Capital,' said Bryan Duval, passing over the explanation with an
absolute carelessness highly reassuring to Miss Montressor; 'nothing
could be better. She is positively in the house, and knows all about
them.'
'Well, she has only been in the house since Mr. Griswold's departure;
but I have no doubt she can give us the information we require.'
'Can you get it from her?' said Bryan Duval, in that curt business
tone which Miss Montressor had come to know so thoroughly, and which
had in it something extremely satisfactory to everybody who wanted to
transact business with the man who spoke thus to the purpose.
'I can,' she replied, 'but it will be a little difficult to do without
exciting suspicion and precipitating discovery, if indeed the
discovery is to be made. I cannot send for her to come to me
openly--such an invitation would astonish Mrs. Griswold, and she might
meet it with an objection--neither can I go in my proper capacity to
Mrs. Griswold's house to visit one of Mrs. Griswold's servants.'
'Why can't you go as a servant yourself?' said Bryan Duval. 'Your
make-up in that line is unexceptionable; try it off the boards at
once!'
'I will,' said Miss Montressor; 'that is a capital idea. I will go
disguised, and discover whether the lady at the play really was Mrs.
Griswold. If I cannot see her, which I may manage to do by some
contrivance, I shall at least be sure to see a portrait of her. A man
like her husband was not likely to be satisfied with a mere miniature
of his wife while a full-length portrait was to be had for money. We
are, of course, morally certain that the fact is what we take it to
be, but the first thing to be done is to achieve actual certainty.
Taking it for granted that I see Mrs. Griswold and identify her with
the miniature, what will you do next?'
'I cannot decide upon that until I have received your report,' said
Bryan Duval, 'on these two heads--first, the identity of Mrs. Griswold
with the portrait Mr. Foster showed you; secondly, the name and
address of some intimate friend of the family, with whom I may at once
communicate.'
'I am quite sure there is such a person,' interrupted Miss Montressor.
'I could not distinctly recall everything that Mr. Foster told me, in
the hurry and confusion of last night; but since then I have
remembered a good deal. He mentioned to me, but not by name, one
friend in particular, in whose charge he had confided not only his
business interests in New York during his absence, but also his
household treasures. Poor fellow, he quite amused me--though I am
conscious now that I did not respond very warmly or graciously--by his
simple talk about his wife and child. He would try to describe the
baby to me, and he did describe the mother as well as showing me her
picture. He was a good soul. But I quite remember now that he told me
he had this trusty friend.'
'A piece of information which makes your suggestion all the more
admirable and your aid all the more valuable. We now have some
definite basis of action. When we discover this friend of Foster's, or
Griswold's, we shall not only have found the man who will be our best
guide as to what we ought to do, but we shall have found the man who
will be sure to hit upon the motive of the crime. And now lose no
time. Set about your task at once; the sooner it is over, the better
for you and for what I have to do. I do not say to you, do it well and
do it delicately--that I feel is unnecessary. We have not had half
sufficient time to realise how horrid this thing is which has
happened; and so much the better, since it has so strangely fallen out
that we have come to this side of the world to act in such a tragedy.'
Miss Montressor rose and was about to leave the room, when she said:
'Suppose by any possibility I should be wrong, and that this lady is
not the original of the miniature, consequently that Mr. Griswold, her
husband, is not the murdered man--what will you do in that case?'
'In that case,' said Bryan Duval, 'I shall simply have to communicate
with the authorities the fact that Mr. Foster is not the murdered
man's real name; this on his own authority, and of course it will be
immediately transmitted to London. Go now. You will find me here on
your return; I shall not leave the house.'
Miss Montressor left him, and, going to her own room, made rapid
preparation for the arduous task she had been set. She hurriedly
turned over such articles of her wardrobe as had yet been unpacked,
searching for those most suitable to the part she was to play. While
doing this, her thoughts reverted to the last unprofessional
masquerade in which she had indulged, and, by a natural transition, to
Mr. Dolby. She had thought very little about him during her voyage
out, but as it approached its termination she had occasionally
speculated upon whether that gentleman would present himself at the
wharf, or whether he would wait and pay her a more dignified visit at
her hotel. She had actually spared him a few moments' recollection in
all the triumph of her first brilliantly successful appearance on the
previous evening. 'Was Mr. Dolby in the house?' she had wondered. 'Was
his hand among the number of those which had flung prodigal floral
tributes at her feet? Or--was he sulky still?' She had, however,
completely forgotten him from the announcement of the supper, and in
all the hurry, agitation, and confusion of the ensuing hours of the
night, her mind had never once glanced towards him. But now--she
selected a plain gray skirt, originally intended to fulfil the once
humble office of petticoat, but which was rather an unduly smart
morning walking dress for the part she was assuming--she remembered
the day on which she had gone to the house in Queen-street, and
inquired ineffectually for her angry lover. Even now it was only a
passing remembrance; her feelings were unaffectedly and deeply engaged
in the matter in hand. Miss Montressor's wardrobe contained nothing
suitable to be worn as an out-door dress of the sort which she
required; but she remedied the deficiency by putting on a thick dark
shawl, which she found among the parcel of wraps, and removing the too
conspicuous feather from her hat, over which she pinned a veil.
As she unfolded the shawl the sharp end of a pin caught her finger.
'How tiresome of Justine,' she muttered, 'to leave pins stuck in
shawls! I have so often spoken to her about it;' and she turned over
the folds of the garment to find the obnoxious object. It was a long
gold pin with a carved head, rather intended for a gentleman's necktie
than as a shawl fastener; the stone was a very fine specimen of
intaglio work, and Miss Montressor looked at it without any
recognition of whence it came. It was not hers; and as it was a very
uncommon article, it was not the sort of thing to be picked up on the
floor or anywhere, as people pick up ordinary pins. 'I wonder whose it
is, and how I came by it?' she thought, as she mechanically used it to
fasten the shawl.
She then went quickly clown the stairs, and passed out of the door,
comparatively unnoticed. It was early in the day, and the customary
groups of loungers had not yet assembled. On leaving the hotel, Miss
Montressor turned to the right, and making inquiry of the first person
whom she met as to the distance which divided her from that portion of
Fifth-avenue in which Mrs. Griswold's house was situate, learned that
she would be overtaken in about a minute by a street car, which would
deposit her close by. She had barely thanked her informant when the
car came up, and the man to whom she had spoken signalled to the
conductor; the next moment Miss Montressor was making her first
experience of the marvellously-convenient and well-arranged street
locomotion of New York. As she seated herself, a sudden recollection
flashed across her that the pin which she had been so surprised to
find in her shawl had belonged to Mr. Foster. With the suddenness of
the vision, the little circumstance which had placed it in her
possession returned to her memory--again she felt the slight chill of
the evening air; she saw Mr. Foster's face, and felt his careful hands
drawing the warm folds around her; remembering that he held them
together with one hand, as he removed the pin from his own necktie
with the other. How came she to have forgotten this pin--to have
omitted returning it to him? It was a strange oversight. How curious
and mysterious, should it be now destined to be an important
coincidence! 'His wife will remember it,' she thought. 'If we are
right in our terrible belief, my bringing it to her, my requesting her
to identify it, will enable me to prove my sad story to the poor lady.'
What was it Mr. Foster had told her about this pin? She must try to
recollect all he had said very exactly; she must not add a word or
subtract a word if possible. He had said that it was a sleeve button
that had belonged to his wife; that on his arrival in London he had
found it among his things, where it had no doubt been put by accident,
and that he had had it made into a pin--yes, that was exactly what he
had said. She took out her pocket-book, and in the few minutes
occupied by the transit she wrote down, with all the accuracy
attainable by her memory, the words in which Mr. Foster had told her
these facts.
She had hardly concluded the memorandum when she was set down, and in
a few minutes found herself at the door of Mrs. Griswold's house. A
good-humoured coloured servant answered the summons of the bell, and,
on her inquiry for Mrs. Jenkins, ushered her into a small waiting-room
on the right of the hall. Several newspapers lay upon the table; she
turned them over hurriedly, and found in each great prominence given
to the appalling murder in Liverpool of an American gentleman. She had
no time to read the details, which were afforded in every variety of
type, and embellished with every device to attract curiosity and
direct attention, for she was joined by her sister within a few
moments. 'Civil people these,' she thought, in the way that people
will think of trifles amid the most serious occupations of the mind;
'civil people these, to give a message to a servant with such
celerity.'
'You see I have come to visit you, Bess, after all'
Mrs. Jenkins received her sister with unbounded delight, but had
hardly greeted her and recounted with what eloquent praises Mrs.
Griswold had spoken of the performance, and especially of Clara's part
in it, that morning, when she was helping to dress her, when she broke
off to ask about the very subject which was occupying Miss
Montressor's thoughts.
'My dear,' she said, 'of course you have heard of this horrible
murder? It gave me a dreadful turn last night, when I heard the boys
crying out, about an hour after Mrs. Griswold went to the play, and
Jim went out to find out all about it. Mrs. Griswold hadn't heard
anything of it when she came in, and I was very glad; for really it is
enough to make one nervous. You heard all about it, of course?'
'O, yes,' said Miss Montressor; 'we have heard all about it. It
happened the very day after we sailed. Does every one know about it in
the house now?'
'Of course,' said Mrs. Jenkins.
'I didn't mean to ask that,' said Miss Montressor; 'my mind is
wandering. I meant to say, was Mrs. Griswold acquainted with Mr.
Foster?'
'Lor' bless you! no, Clara,' said her sister, laughing. 'I think you
Londoners imagine London is the only big place in the world, and think
people who live anywhere else must know everybody who ever came from
the place where they live. There are lots of Fosters in New York, I
should think, and there is not anything known about this poor gentleman
except that his name is Foster. Mrs. Griswold saw it this morning, and
she said she did not think Mr. Griswold knew any one of the name; but
it made her quite downhearted--set her off thinking of Mr. Griswold, I
suppose.'
'Well, I am glad she hadn't heard it before she left the theatre,'
said Miss Montressor; 'it isn't pleasant news to wind up the evening
with, even when one knows nothing at all of the parties concerned, a
dreary epilogue to the play. I saw Mrs. Griswold last night, Bess.'
'I am glad you did. What do you think of her--though I suppose you
couldn't judge very well at that distance?'
'Well, in the first place, I should like to be sure that it was Mrs.
Griswold. People change places occasionally, you know, at the theatre,
and I didn't catch sight of her until the third act, nor see her very
distinctly then; but I could make out the gown, and that she wore gold
ornaments of the new fashion--warming-pan style, all clink and clatter
when you are near them, and very like harness when you are not. I saw
the blue-and-gold fan, too; so I suppose there is no doubt that was
the lady?'
'No doubt at all,' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'She was in the seat I told you
to look at, and said how comfortable it was, and what a capital view
of the stage she had from it. She was highly delighted, I can tell
you, Clara, and said she liked your acting better than any she had
ever seen. I told her it was not your best part, that it was nothing
to your Juliet; but she said she was afraid she was too stupid to care
about Shakespeare--not that she is stupid. I am sure I don't set
myself up for a judge, but I think she is as bright as she is pretty.'
'I don't exactly know whether she is pretty or not,' said Miss
Montressor, 'and I take a great interest in your Mrs. Griswold: a lady
who is so kind to her dependents as you make her out to be, and has
the good sense and the good taste to be an admirer of the drama, is a
legitimate subject of interest. I am sorry I did not see her face more
distinctly; could you give me a sight of her now?'
'Now,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'and in that dress, Clara! What would she
think?'
'Why, my dear Bess, you do not imagine I want you to introduce me as
Miss Montressor in this costume, and thus deliberately tell on myself
the very thing which I have been impressing upon you must be kept
profoundly secret? Not at all. But nursery visitors are not
impossibilities in a house of this sort, I suppose? Couldn't I be a
humble friend, a former fellow-servant somewhere--I suppose she thinks
you were a servant before you came to her--who has just dropped in to
have a look at baby?'
Mrs. Jenkins laughed. 'It would be good fun to have a private play of
that sort on our own account, Clara, but unfortunately it cannot be
done, for Mrs. Griswold is not in the nursery, and she is not likely
to come to it. She caught cold last night at the play, and I could not
persuade her not to get up this morning; but she felt very tired after
breakfast, and I did persuade her to go and lie down: she is lying
down in her own room, and the orders are that she is not to be
disturbed for anything less important than a cable message from Mr.
Griswold. She is always expecting one, though, as far as I can see, he
is too sensible to waste money in them, and satisfies himself with
writing by the mail--precious long letters they are, and doesn't she
prize them just! However, she is lying down, and I cannot disturb her,
above all by taking a stranger into the room; so you cannot see her at
present.'
'O, never mind,' said Miss Montressor; 'so much the better that she is
in the room. I shall have plenty of chances of seeing her. And now I
should like a look at the house, Bess. It is the first house I have
been in in New York, and I have a fancy for that sort of thing, and I
like to get hints about carpets and curtains and drawing-room fixings.
Can't you take me round--it is allowed, I suppose?'
'O, certainly, it is allowed,' said Mrs. Jenkins; 'we are under no
restraint here. Come along up-stairs;' and the unsuspecting woman led
Miss Montressor up the broad staircase to the white-and-gold
folding-doors which gave access to the reception-rooms.
'What a simple creature it is,' thought Miss Montressor, 'that it has
never occurred to her to ask me why I have so decidedly changed mv
mind as to come here to see her, that being the very exact thing which
I so positively assured her yesterday I could not do! Very handsome
rooms, indeed,' she said aloud; 'fitted up in capital taste, and
evidently quite regardless of expense. That's a fine picture on the
wall opposite.'
She stepped across the floor rapidly, and stood still in front of it.
It was a fine picture; an admirably executed portrait of Helen
Griswold. The artist had painted her in an unconventional attitude,
and the whole picture was pleasing to the general eye, interested in
the work of art rather than in the likeness. It represented a slight,
almost girlish figure, in soft white muslin robes slightly trimmed
with lace, touched here and there with a knot of ribbon, a lace veil
being loosely tied over the rich chestnut-brown hair, softening its
masses, but hiding neither its richness nor its colour; the hands were
clad in gardening-gloves; in the right was a large pair of scissors,
just about to be applied to a rose-bush, one blossom of which was held
apart from the stem by the left; a basket of roses already cut stood
at the feet, and the scene of the picture was a conservatory, the
original of which Miss Montressor had caught a glimpse of on the first
floor of the house.
'That is Mrs. Griswold's portrait,' said Mrs. Jenkins, in reply to her
sister's observation, 'and it is not at all flattered; so now you can
see, if you had got a near view of her last night, you would have
agreed with me about her beauty.'
'Yes,' said Miss Montressor slowly, 'that is a pretty face, and one
cannot say of it, as one does of so many pretty faces, that there is
nothing in it. I should think she was a very sensible woman, as well
as a very kind-hearted one?'
'She is just that,' said Mrs. Jenkins enthusiastically. 'Sit down
here, Clara, and have a good look at it.'
The sisters placed themselves side by side upon an ottoman which
commanded a good view of the portrait, at which Miss Montressor
continued steadfastly to gaze. All doubt was over now, all hope that
she had been mistaken was at an end; the miniature she had seen in the
watch that day as she paced the terrace at Richmond was but a reduced
copy without the veil, and the face that looked mildly, beaming down
upon her out of its gilded frame, was as fresh and fair as the roses
in the feet. Miss Montressor was not of a classic turn of mind; her
education had not gone far in any direction, nor at all in that; she
did not refer the suggestiveness of the open scissors in the woman's
hand, about to snip the fresh young life of the beautiful rose, to any
recollection of the Pareae; but it had a certain something in it which
impressed her, something of suspicion which filled her eyes with tears
unseen by Mrs. Jenkins.
'Is there a portrait of Mr. Griswold?' she asked.
'Only a small one, half-sized, and since he went away Mrs. Griswold
has had it moved to her bedroom. It hangs on the wall just over her
dressing-table, and opposite the foot of her bed. It is the first
thing she must see in the morning when she opens her eyes. They say it
is uncommonly like him; it is painted by the same artist who did this
one; but Mrs. Griswold will have it the picture in her bracelet--much
handsomer and much younger--is more like Mr. Griswold.'
'Does any one of her family stay with her while he is away?' was Miss
Montressor's next question.
'There is not any family. She has no relatives, I am told, not only in
New York, but in all the world; she was an orphan when Mr. Griswold
married her, and I do not believe he has any relatives; for I have
never seen any nor heard them spoken of, either by her or among the
servants.'
'That's lonely for Mrs. Griswold. Has she much company while he is
away? But I think you said not yesterday?'
'O dear, no she leads the quietest life that any lady could live. Many
a one would think it very dull; but she doesn't, what with her books,
and music, and baby, and her letters to Mr. Griswold. She is sometimes
sorrowful, but never dull. She has some visitors at times, but I don't
think she cares for them--one person is pretty much the same to her as
another, when it is not Mr. Griswold--and one day she said to me, "I
have no intimates, and my husband has very few for so wonderfully
sociable a man, and such a general favourite as he is."'
'Then there is no one to take care of her in particular?' said Miss
Montressor; 'for she is young, you know, to be left alone with so
much to look after and to do as there must be in the care of all
this,'--with a comprehensive sweep of her arm, intended to take in all
the household goods at once.
'O, no, there is no one to take care of her,' said Mrs. Jenkins; 'but
she can take very good care of herself. She always wishes to do, and
she always does, what is right and good and kind towards every one.'
Miss Montressor was profoundly discouraged. Her embassy was not
prospering; the worst that they feared was true, and the aid on which
they had speculated did not seem to be forthcoming. Mrs. Griswold had
no relatives and no intimates. Mr. Griswold had no relatives, and if
he had any intimates, Mrs. Jenkins could evidently have no information
concerning them. What was to be done now? Miss Montressor dared not
pursue her questioning of her sister any further, and hastily decided
that the best thing she could do would be to return to the hotel and
narrate to Bryan Duval exactly what had passed. She felt that her
mission was but imperfectly executed; but its solemnity and importance
had grown upon her with every moment since she had entered Mrs.
Griswold's house, and she was now strongly actuated by a nervous
desire to get out of it as soon as possible. She looked at her watch
and started up in a hurry.
'I must be going, Bess,' she said; 'I had no notion it was so late. I
am overdue at rehearsal, and here I have stayed talking about other
people, and not said anything of all I wanted to say to you. Come
along down-stairs with me.'
'You will come again, Clara?' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'Nobody will ever
suspect you in that gown and with that great shawl--it spoils your
figure, dear, but never mind.'
'I will try,' said Miss Montressor, 'I will see about it; if not, you
can come to me. Good-bye now.'
Mrs. Jenkins had come to the door with her; the hall was empty as the
sisters spoke their last few words there. Mrs. Jenkins's hand was upon
the lock of the street door when the bell was rung. She mechanically
drew back the lock, and a gentleman presented himself. He was a young
man, tall, slight, and upright, with bright black eyes and dark
complexion, fine curly black hair, and a dark moustache.
'Is Mrs. Griswold at home?' he said.
'She is at home, sir,' said Mrs. Jenkins, 'but she is very tired and
not very well, and she is lying down.'
'O, then,' said the stranger, passing into the hall, 'I will content
myself with a visit to your quarters, Mrs. Jenkins, and a look at the
baby.' He had lifted his hat to Miss Montressor, who by this time was
on the outside of the door. 'And,' he now added, 'I will just write a
line in the waiting-room before you take me up-stairs, Mrs. Jenkins,
and ask you to give it to Mrs. Griswold when she awakes.' The sisters
parted with a wave of the hand, and Mrs. Jenkins shut the door.
Miss Montressor walked slowly and thoughtfully down the street. She
felt sure that the gentleman whom she had just seen, and who spoke so
familiarly to her sister, must be at least an intimate acquaintance of
Mrs. Griswold's--the early hour of his visit, his familiar manner, the
fact that he was going to be taken up to see the child, the very tone
of her sister's voice as she answered his question, all indicated that
he was no stranger. Bess had said Mrs. Griswold had no intimate
friends. Perhaps she had forgotten this one, or the intimacy might be
between him and Mr. Griswold. From that, may be, Miss Montressor felt
instinctively that here was a resource--an instrument put into her
hands. There could be no risk in the using of it.
By the time she had arrived at this conclusion she was well out of
sight from the windows of Mrs. Griswold's house; but no one could
leave that house and turn to either side without her perceiving the
fact. She crossed the street and waited on the opposite side. She was
quite alone, as it happened, throughout its long length, and might
pass slowly back and forward a few steps in each direction without
attracting attention.
The minutes during which she was thus engaged seemed very long to Miss
Montressor. Would Bryan Duval approve of what she was going to do? It
might be a great blunder; it might be the best thing under the
circumstances. She was forced to use her discretion in the matter;
there seemed the one way in which she could fulfil the promise with
which she had left Duval. After an interval of at least a quarter of
an hour the door of Mrs. Griswold's house opened, and the young man
for whom Miss Montressor was watching appeared on the threshold,
attended by the coloured servant, to whom he was speaking pleasantly,
and who was receiving a communication with the most expressive grin.
In another moment he came down the steps, and advanced briskly in the
same direction which she had taken. She stood perfectly still until he
was nearly opposite to her. Then she crossed the street rapidly, went
up to him, and, without giving herself a moment to consider, said:
'You are a friend of Mrs. Griswold's? In her interest may I speak with
you?'