A SUSPICION.
It was five weeks since Mrs. Hathern came home, and late June was
queening it over the woods and hills of Lovering, and the lawn and the
garden were full of flowers and beauty. The house, with its new coat of
paint, was quite another place from the one we had known from childhood.
Then it was brown and weather stained; now it was white, with green
blinds, and looked very clean and fresh and cool in the summer sunlight,
with the luxurious vines clinging to its sides and the huge columns of
the piazzas. Inside the change was greater still. Plumbers, painters,
upholsterers, carpenters and negroes had departed. The furniture had
come and we scarcely knew ourselves with our carpets of Brussels and
moquette, our sofas and chairs of brocade and rosewood, our long mirrors
and lace draperies, and, more than all, the costly paintings which in
their Florentine frames adorned the walls of the drawing room and hall.
We were very fine, and our neighbors came in crowds to see and admire
and congratulate us upon our prosperity. Mrs. Hathern had plenty of
money and spent it lavishly upon us all, and there is no doubt that we
were really greatly improved in every way by the introduction of Boston
standards and Boston ways. But on Fan’s part and mine there was always a
regret for the good old easy-going times when things were at haphazard
and we did as we pleased, with no one but Phyllis to dictate to us. She
was still doing her duty, but doing it in a cabin across the back yard.
The range had come and had been set up, and Mrs. Hathern had done her
best to initiate Phyllis into its mysteries. But either she couldn’t or
wouldn’t learn, and in despair she had been allowed to carry her pots
and kettles and skillets and ovens to the cabin, where there was a
fireplace in which she could potter as she pleased, until the arrival of
Miss Norah O’Rourke, who understood the range in all its ramifications.
She was still visiting her grandmother and _resting up_, but she was
expected in a few days, together with Julina, in whom Fan and I felt
considerable interest as the girl who had made love to Carl. He, too,
was expected soon and had sent on a box containing a most heterogenous
collection, which he had called his Lares and Penates,—fishing tackle,
bathing suits, an air-gun, a student’s cap, sporting pictures cut from
sporting papers, old books and photographs, and some handkerchiefs and
gloves which were never bought for him and in which there still lingered
a delicate perfume,—the whole not worth the cost of the express, his
mother said.
But she unpacked them carefully and put them in his room, the
pleasantest bed-chamber in the house and the one we had always used for
guests. This she appropriated without consulting us. Indeed, she had
never consulted us but once and that, with regard to the disposition of
some of the old furniture, the piano and the pictures of our mother and
Katy’s. These last had hung in father’s room, where he could see them
the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, and we had
prided ourselves upon them because they were fair likenesses of the
sweet-faced women who had once reigned as mistresses at the Elms and
because they were our only oils.
“They may be good likenesses, but they are badly done,—mere daubs,” Mrs.
Hathern said, when calling our attention to them by asking where we
would like to have them put. The space they occupied was wanted for her
own portrait, life-size, taken in Paris and gorgeous in cream satin, low
neck and pearls. “Three Mrs. Hatherns in one husband’s bed-chamber are
too many,” she said, and we agreed with her and removed the daubs to our
own room, where we were sitting when Carl’s box was being unpacked.
Katy was looking on and prattling constantly, while her stepmother
occasionally reproved her for being so curious and asking so many
questions. Something was wanted from below stairs and Mrs. Hathern went
to fetch it, leaving Katy alone. A moment after the child came running
to us with two photographs which she had found in a book. One, the
freshest and newest, was that of a bright, handsome boy of twelve or
thirteen, with a happy, laughing expression in his brown eyes which told
of a sunny disposition and perfect content with life as he found it. The
other was the picture of a boy two or three years older, with something
the same features, but a worried, anxious expression as if life were not
all a holiday. That they were related we were sure, and that one was a
poor relation we felt equally sure.
“Carl,” I said to Fan, indicating the younger face.
“Yes, Carl,” she answered, but her gaze was riveted upon the other,—the
sad, browbeaten face,—whose great wide open blue eyes looked into ours
with a wistful, pleading expression we had seen somewhere and could not
recall. “Who is he, and what makes me feel as if I were looking upon
some body dead?” Fan asked just as the soft swish of Mrs. Hathern’s gown
was heard and she appeared at the door, saying in the low tone which
always made Katy shiver and think of the high chair, “Katy, did you take
two photographs from Carl’s room?”
“Yes, mamma. I wanted to show ’em to Fan and Ann,” Katy said, reaching
her hand to us for them.
I gave mine up, saying as I did so, “This I am sure is Carl. He is a
very handsome boy.”
But Fan kept hers, fascinated by the mournful eyes which held her as the
Ancient Mariner held his unwilling hearer.
“Yes, this is Carl, and he is a handsome boy,” Mrs. Hathern replied,
taking the photograph from me.
“And who is this?” Fan asked, surrendering hers at last.
I did not think of it then, but it came to me afterwards that Mrs.
Hathern’s voice was not quite natural as she replied, “That is Carl’s
cousin Paul, who once lived with us.”
“Where is he now?” was Fan’s next question, and Mrs. Hathern replied, “I
don’t know. I think he is dead. He went to the war, and never came
back.”
She left the room and we were alone, as Katy had already gone. We were
sitting near an open window looking north, and simultaneously our eyes
went across the field to the hillside cemetery where the headstones of
Charlie and The Boy showed white amid the growth of flowering shrubs and
fragrant evergreens; then they came back and confronted each other with
a questioning look of terror and surprise. Fan was the first to speak.
Leaning forward she whispered to me, “Mrs. Hathern is Aunt Martha!”
“Yes,” I said. “She _is_ Aunt Martha,” and I felt myself grow faint and
sick as I said it.
We had conceived such a contempt for the woman whose image had haunted
our dying boy’s pillow that the shock was very great when we learned
that she was with us, a part of us, our father’s wife. We felt more and
more sure of it as we recalled the few words The Boy had dropped with
regard to himself. When we asked his name he had said he was one of the
Apostles, and that was Paul. He had spoken of a Carlyle as younger than
himself.
That was Carl, and there seemed nothing wanting to complete the chain of
evidence except to know Mrs. Hathern’s real name. From the window we saw
father in the lane mounting his horse preparatory to visiting a patient.
Slipping down the back stairs Fan went up to him and after stroking the
horse’s neck a moment said, “By the way, father, what is Mrs. Hathern’s
real name? You call her Matty. Is it Matilda?” “No, child, Martha. I
thought you knew,” was the reply, and in a moment Fan was back again,
pirouetting around the room and beating the air as if she were crazy.
“She is Aunt Martha!” she exclaimed. “I don’t wonder he said he would
never go back to her. How long do you suppose she kept him sitting in
chairs like she does Katy?”
“Until he was glued to them,” I answered, and she continued, “It is
horrible, horrible! I think I hate her. What will she say, I wonder,
when she knows that Paul died here with us? And she shall know it.
Snowdon’s knight never longed more earnestly to stand face to face with
Rhoderic Dhu than I long to tell her The Boy’s story.”