HOW CHANCES MOCK
2 Henry IV., iii. 1.
Maurice had seen Berenice only once since his encounter at the ball. He
had hoped and dreaded to meet her, but for more than a week after his
leaving the Clergy House he had failed. One morning he saw her walking
before him on Beacon Street; and while he instantly said to himself
that he trusted that she would not discover him, he hurried forward to
overtake her. His feet carried him forward even while he told himself
that he did not wish to go. He was beside her in a moment, and as he
spoke she raised those rich, dark eyes with a glance which made him
thrill.
"Good-morning," he said with his heart beating as absurdly as if the
encounter were of the highest consequence.
"Good-morning, Mr. Wynne," she responded, with a manner entirely
abstract.
She had started and blushed, he was sure, on perceiving him; but if so
she had instantly recovered her self-possession. He was disconcerted by
the coldness of her manner, and began to wish in complete earnest that
he had not overtaken her.
"I beg your pardon for intruding," he said, his voice hardening, "but"--
"The public street is free to anybody, I suppose," she returned, with
an air of studied politeness. "I don't claim any exclusive right to it."
"I didn't apologize for being on the street, but for speaking to you."
"Oh, that," answered Berenice carelessly, although he thought that he
detected a spark of mischief in her eye, "is a thing of so little
consequence that it isn't worth mentioning."
"I venture to speak to you," he said, ignoring the thrust, "because I
have wanted to beg your pardon for my rudeness when I saw you last."
She turned upon him quickly, her cheeks aflame.
"Your rudeness?" she exclaimed. "Your brutality, I think you mean!"
It was his turn to grow red.
"My brutality, if you choose. I beg your pardon for whatever offended."
"It was unpardonable! It was a thing no woman could ever forgive!"
Maurice turned pale. He stopped where he stood.
"In that case," he said, bowing with formality, "I have no business to
be speaking to you now."
He turned and was gone before she could add a word.
This interview probably made neither of the young persons happy; and
Maurice it left entirely miserable. He was not without a proper pride,
however, and in his present frame of mind was ready to call it to his
aid. He bore a brave outward front. He resolved not to think of his
love; yet he was not without the hardly confessed hope that if he could
find the lost will he might be taking a step in the direction of the
realization of his desires. He tried to forget Berenice in the very
means he was taking to bring himself nearer to her.
He set out for Montfield one bright February day, amused at himself for
the difference in his attitude toward the world from the mere fact that
he had discarded the ecclesiastical garb. It gave him a fresh and
delightful sensation to be traveling on business in clothing like that
of other men. He had no longer any wish to be separated by his dress,
and thought with contemptuous amusement of the lurking
self-consciousness which had always attached itself in his mind to the
fact that he was in a costume apart. He realized now that he had from
this derived a certain satisfaction, half simple vanity and half the
gratification of his histrionic instinct. He felt as if he had been
like a child pleased to attract attention by a feather stuck in his
cap, or a toy sword girt at his side. Now that the whole experience was
past he could smile at it, but he had small patience with those who
still retained the clerical garb. Men have usually little tolerance for
the fault which they have but newly outgrown; and Maurice thought with
a sort of amazement of his late fellows at the Clergy House, and of
their manifest satisfaction in the dress they wore. It was almost with
a sensation of self-righteousness that he enjoyed the habiliments of
ordinary civilized man.
As the train sped on, and the scenery became more familiar as he
approached nearer to Montfield, Maurice naturally fell to thinking, in
an irregular, detached fashion, of his youth. Both Wynne's parents had
died in his childhood, and there had been little to keep firm the bonds
of family. Alice Singleton he had known, however, both as a girl and as
the wife of his half brother, but he had known only to dislike and
avoid her. He began now to wonder how she would receive him, and
whether she would allude to the scene at Mrs. Rangely's when he had
broken up her spiritualistic deception.
The train of thought into which reminiscence had plunged him carried
him over his whole life. He realized for the first time that his
religious experiences had been little more than a reflection of those
of Philip. It was Ashe who had interested him in spiritual things, who
had led him into the church, who had practically determined for him
that he should become a priest. For the first time, and with profound
amazement, Maurice realized how completely his theological life had
been the growth of the mind of Ashe rather than of his own. The thought
brought with it a sense of weakness and self-contempt.
"Haven't I any strength of character?" he asked himself. "In everything
practical Phil has always relied on me. It was always Phil I cared for,
not the church."
Imperfectly as he was able to phrase it, Maurice was not in the end
without some reasonably clear conception of the fact that in his life
Philip had represented the feminine element. It was by love for his
friend that he had been led on. Now that his reason was fully awake
this emotional yielding to the thought of another was no longer
possible; now that his heart was filled with a passion for Berenice his
nature no longer responded to the appeal of the feminine in Ashe.
Maurice was half aware that his was a character sure to be influenced
greatly by affection; but he felt that it would never again be possible
for him so to give up to another the guidance of his life as he now saw
that he had yielded it to his friend. He had learned his weakness, and
the lesson had been enforced too sharply ever to be forgotten.
He was coming now into the region of his old home. The forests were
beginning faintly to show the approach of spring; the treetops were
dimly warming in color, the branches thickening against the sky. Here
and there Maurice looked down on a brook black with the late rains and
with the floods from the snow-drifts still melting on the distant
hills. Now he caught a far flash of the river where he had skated in
winters almost forgotten, so fast does time move, where he had fished
and bathed in summers so long gone that they seemed to belong to the
life of some other. Yet once more and a distant hill, duskily blue
against the bluer heavens, wakened for him some memory of his boyhood,
seeming to challenge him to renew the old joys and to revel in the
by-gone fervors.
All these things softened the mood in which Maurice came back to the
old town, and as he walked up the village street, so well remembered
yet so strange, he had a sense of unreality. The very homely
familiarity of it all made it appear the more like a dream. He felt his
heart-beats quicken as he approached the Ashe place, wondering if he
should see Mrs. Ashe. He had always, with all his affection, felt for
Philip's mother a sort of awe, as if she were more than a simple human
creature. He found it difficult to understand that Mrs. Singleton
should be staying with her, so incongruous was the association in his
mind of two such women. With Mrs. Ashe, Alice must at least be at her
best.
He walked up to the house, passing under the leafless lilac bushes with
a keen remembrance of how they were laden with odors in June. He
wondered if the tansy still grew under the sitting-room window, and if
the lilies-of-the-valley flourished on the north side of the house as
of old. Then he knocked with the quaint old black knocker, and with the
sound came back the present and the thought that he had before him an
interview which might be neither pleasant nor easy.
Mrs. Singleton herself opened the door.
"I saw you coming," she greeted him, "and there is nobody at home but
me."
Maurice tried not to look disappointed.
"Then Mrs. Ashe is not at home?"
"No; she is out, and the girl is out. Will you come in? You probably
didn't come to see me."
"But I did come to see you."
She led the way into the long, low sitting-room, with its many doors
and its wide fireplace, so familiar that he might have left it
yesterday.
"I can't imagine what you want of me," Mrs. Singleton said, waving her
hand toward a chair. "The last time I saw you you didn't seem very fond
of me."
She seated herself by the side of the fire in a great old-fashioned
chair covered with chintz and spreading out wings on either side of her
head.
"You are still angry, Alice, I see," he rejoined. "Well, I can't help
that. I did what was right. How in the world could you make up your
mind to fool those people so?"
"They wanted to be fooled; why not oblige them?"
He regarded her with astonishment. He had expected her to deny that her
deception was deliberate, to claim that the manifestations were real.
Her frank and cynical speech disconcerted him. He had no reply. She
broke into a sneering laugh.
"There," she said, "you didn't come here to talk about that seance.
What did you come for?"
"I came to ask you if you still have Aunt Hannah's desk."
She regarded him keenly.
"The little traveling desk?"
"Yes."
"What if I have?"
"But have you?"
"Oh, I don't mind telling you that. I don't see that it can do you any
good to know that I have it. I always carry it round with me. It's so
convenient."
"Will you sell it to me?"
"Certainly not. If you didn't want it, I might give it to you; but if
you do you can't have it."
Maurice began to feel his anger rising. He felt helpless before this
woman, with her innocent, baby face, this woman with the guileless look
of a child and a child's freedom from moral scruples, who faced him
with a smile of pleased malice. It might be unwise to tell his real
errand, but she surely could not do any harm greater than to be
disagreeable. There must be some method, he reflected, of getting at
the thing legally; but what it was he was entirely ignorant; and now
that he had shown a desire for the desk he was confident that Mrs.
Singleton would persist until she had discovered the truth. He could
think of nothing to do but to make a clean breast of the whole matter.
He nerved himself to the task, and told her of the finding of Norah and
of what followed.
"Have you ever discovered that the desk had a false bottom?" he asked
in conclusion.
"No, brother Maurice. The spirits hadn't revealed it to me. But then I
never asked them about that."
There was an air of triumphant glee in her manner, an open and mocking
sneer, which dismayed him. He was sure that he had erred in telling her
his secret; yet he reflected that he could hardly have done otherwise,
and that she surely would not dare to refuse to give up a legal
document so important.
"Will you let me examine the desk?"
"I am so happy to oblige you," she returned. "Though whether your story
is true or not must depend, you know, upon the unsupported testimony of
the medium--I mean of the speaker."
Maurice rose and went toward her, facing her squarely.
"I understand, Alice," he said, "that you don't love me, and I haven't
come to ask favors. This is a matter of simple honesty. I certainly
don't think you would willfully keep me out of my property."
"Thank you for drawing the line somewhere. It was so noble of you to
interfere at Mrs. Rangely's! You didn't in the least mind robbing me of
my good name, and them of the comfort of believing it was real.
Besides, I did see things! I swear to you that I did! I am a medium in
spite of whatever you say. I can call up spirits!"
Her voice rose as she went on, and he feared lest she should work
herself into one of her furies of excitement and temper which he had
seen of old.
"Why should we go back to that?" he said, as gently as he could. "That
is past, and I only did what I thought was my duty."
"Oh, you did your duty, did you?" she sneered.
"Well, I'll do mine now. Stay here, while I go and empty that old desk.
I'll match you in doing my duty!"
She hurried tumultuously from the room, leaving Maurice in anything but
an enviable frame of mind. He began to walk up and down, assailed by
old memories at every turn, yet so disturbed by Mrs. Singleton's words
and manner that he could not heed the recollections. The minutes
passed, and Alice did not return. It seemed to him that she took a long
time to remove her papers from the desk. Then he smiled to himself in
bitter amusement and impatience. Of course his sister-in-law was trying
to discover the secret of the double bottom. She would probably
persevere until she had gained the precious document of which he had
come in search. She would read it, and then--He broke off in his
reverie with an exclamation of impatience. What a fool he had been to
attempt to deal with this woman alone! He had, it was true, expected to
find Mrs. Ashe, but he should have sent a lawyer. What did he, a puppet
from the Clergy House, know of managing the affairs of life? He felt
that he had failed in his match with Mrs. Singleton; and he had almost
made up his mind to go in search of her, when he heard her returning.
She came in with her face flushed, her eyes shining, and an air of
triumph which struck dismay to the heart of Maurice.
"I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long," she said, "but I had to
light a fire in the parlor, I was so cold. However, I have something to
show you that will interest you."
"Is it the will?" he asked eagerly.
She answered with a laugh, but led the way across the narrow front
entry into the parlor. The pleasant noise of a crackling fire sounded
within, and as he entered the room he saw that the fireplace was filled
with a ruddy blaze. Then he rushed forward with a cry. There on the top
of the blazing logs were the unmistakable remains of the desk, eaten
through and through by tongues of red flame. He seized the tongs, and
dragged the burning mass to the hearth, but even as he did so he saw
that he was too late.
"It is kind of you to want to save my old desk, Maurice," jeered his
companion; "but I had the misfortune to put the poker through the
bottom of it before I called you, so that I'm afraid it really isn't
worth saving."
He saw that the wood had indeed been punched through and through, and
that it was reduced almost to a cinder. It was easy to see that the
bottom had been double, and burned flakes of paper were visible among
the remains; whether of the will or not it was obviously impossible now
to discover. He looked at the burned bits of board falling into ashes
and cinders at his feet, realizing that here was an end to all his
dreams of regaining his aunt's fortune; that with this dream ended,
too, his visions of being in a position to offer Berenice--His wrath
blazed up in an uncontrollable force.
"You are a fiend!" he cried, facing the woman who smiled beside him.
"You are a thief, a shameless, deliberate thief!"
She stood the image of mirthful, innocent girlhood, her smooth forehead
unclouded, her eyes gleaming as if with the merriment of a child.
"It is a pretty fire, isn't it, Maurice?"
Then her whole expression changed. Into her dark, dewy eyes came a look
of rage, visible murder in a glance.
"You called me a liar, there in Boston," she said hissingly. "I am not
surprised to have you add thief now. I have only done what I chose with
my own property; but I would have been cut into little bits before you
should have had that will through me!"
He could not trust himself to reply. He felt that if he spoke he might
break out into curses, and he was conscious of an unmanly longing to
strike her, to mar that beautiful, false face, childlike and pure in
every line,--for the expression of rage had melted as quickly as it had
come,--to feel the joy of seeing her limbs slacken and her red lips
grow white. He clinched his hands and turned resolutely away.
"I'm sure I don't know that there was anything there that you had any
interest in," she pursued lightly. "I tried as long as I dared to get
the bottom open, and I couldn't, so I decided that it wasn't any of my
business. Only when I put the poker through there seemed to be papers
there."
Maurice could endure no more. He started toward her so fiercely that
she recoiled, a sudden pallor blanching her rosy loveliness. Then he
turned abruptly away again, and got out of the house.