MIDNIGHT FOR CINDERELLA
When the late lowering dawn seeped in at the windows, Willa raised
herself wearily and crept to her desk. Her face with the tears dried
upon it was ghastly in the morning light, but her eyes held a look of
grim determination. Seating herself, she took up her pen and wrote
without hesitation:
"My Dear Mr. Thode:
"I beg that you will not call this evening, that I may be spared the
painful necessity of having you shown the door. In the light of my
present full comprehension of your motives, I no longer wonder that
even you hesitated at the moment of your odious proposal. The only
possible reparation you can make for the humiliation you have brought
upon me in my inmost thoughts is to so arrange that I need never look
upon your face again.
"In all sincerity,
"WILLA MURDAUGH."
The letter finished, she sealed and stamped it; then her worn-out body
slumped in the chair and her head bowed upon her folded arms on the
desk.
The collapse lasted but a moment, however. The same dogged
determination which had forced her weary spirit to the pronouncement of
the verdict upon her love, drove her yet indomitably on. As she lifted
her head her gaze mechanically fell upon the calendar before her and a
slow, infinitely sad smile curled her lips. It was the beginning of
the third day since Starr Wiley had issued his ultimatum. He must
carry his threat into execution or admit it to have been sheer bluff.
Curiously, she looked upon the impending crisis with the impassivity of
a bystander. What did it matter now?
Then realization came back in a full tide and she sprang to her feet.
The weary plodding search which had taken her half over the city in the
past few agonizing days had been fruitless, yet must it still continue
until definite news of Tia Juana could be learned. Dan Morrissey had
been faithful, but his ardent spirit outran his detective skill and his
initiative advanced no farther afield than a daily round of the
hospitals and temporary shelters of the city's driftwood, and a
hopeless concentration on the neighborhood from which the aged woman
had so mysteriously vanished.
Willa herself had no more comprehensive plan; she had advertised
discreetly in Spanish in the "personal" column of a morning newspaper
and followed every tentative line of investigation which presented
itself to her, but messages to each stage of the journey back to
Limasito and exhaustive questioning of the few individuals with whom
Tia Juana had come in contact in New York were alike unproductive of
result.
Hopelessness was stealthily enveloping her spirit, but she resolutely
fought it down. She must not give up, she would not until Tia Juana
was safe. She had been instrumental in bringing the aged woman to an
alien land, and she was responsible for whatever misfortune might have
come upon her. Then, too, there was her purpose still to be achieved;
that at least remained to her.
At breakfast Angie addressed her in honeyed tones, scrutinizing her
hungrily meanwhile for evidence of the result of her maneuver, but
Willa was stonily noncommittal. The meal progressed in a constrained
silence which was broken only by the shrill summons of the telephone.
Señora Rodriguez's staccato voice came over the wire in such an
outpouring of hysteria that at first Willa could make nothing of it,
but at length one phrase smote her ears:
"It is the jorobadito, José, who has disappeared now!"
"What?" Willa faltered. "You mean that José has gone also? It cannot
be, Señora Rodriguez! There must be a mistake! He would not go unless
he were abducted!"
"No, Señorita; there was no abduction!" the Spanish woman cried. "The
little José was all of yesterday most thoughtful. Scarcely could I
arouse him to eat, and as his fever abated I allowed him to sit in the
sun upon the glass-enclosed back porch and did not urge upon him the
medicine he hates. Last night as he went to bed he kissed my hand
quite suddenly, a thing he has not done before, though always was he
courteous. This morning he was gone as the old Señora went, without
warning.--Señorita, I am a poor woman, but I would give half I possess
to have the pobrecito back for he is frail and weak to be alone in this
great city and he has not a peso with him. Moreover, he brought me
luck. What can I do, Señorita, to find him once more?"
Willa cut the woman's protestations short, and, calling up the
garage--their prearranged rendez-vous--instructed Dan to meet her at
the bridge.
Intent on the new calamity, she gave no heed as to the probability of
having been overheard by Angie, but hurriedly departed.
The deeply concerned Dan broke all records and narrowly escaped arrest
in getting her to the Rodriguez home, but nothing further could be
elicited from its dismayed chatelaine. Her sincerity, however, was
self-evident; she could have had no hand in the disappearance of the
little hunchback.
The day was spent in a feverishly renewed search which brought no
surcease of anxiety and at its end Willa dragged herself with leaden
feet to her room. Her head seemed bursting and she shook as with an
ague as she dressed for the tedious dinner and the still more tedious
game of bridge which was the program of the evening. She dared not
absent herself, explanations enough would be demanded of her for the
day's broken engagements, but she looked forward to the hours ahead
with a dread foreboding which she could not name.
It was merely nerves, she assured herself; she was worn-out mentally
and physically with the continued strain and ceaseless effort and she
forced her thoughts resolutely away from the false but ecstatic
happiness which might have been hers on that evening save for the
discovery of Kearn Thode's perfidy.
The arrival of the expected guests commanded her descent to the
drawing-room, dinner somehow dragged through its almost interminable
length and the bridge-tables were made up, when a diversion occurred.
The door-bell pealed, and Welch obeyed its summons, then came and
called Ripley Halstead quietly from his place. No premonition warned
Willa, even when her cousin returned visibly perturbed and excused
himself for the evening, pleading an unanticipated business conference.
The tables were readjusted and the game went on to its close. Then
came supper, and when the last of the guests had departed the hands of
the clock were on the stroke of twelve and Willa turned with a sigh of
relief to ascend to her room.
Midway the stairs, she was halted by hearing her name called in
strange, stunned accents, and, turning, saw Ripley Halstead standing in
the library door, regarding her with dazed, half-incredulous eyes, as
though she were a changeling.
Instantly the truth came to her, and with head held high and a slight
scornful smile upon her lips she descended and approached him.
The long table in the center of the library was strewn with large
legal-looking documents, and beside it sat Mason North, his rotund body
sagged in the chair, his good-natured face drawn and haggard. Opposite
him stood Starr Wiley, his bruised lips twisted into a leer of triumph.
The girl looked gravely from one to the other and then turning to her
cousin, waited submissively for him to speak.
"Willa, my dear----" he paused, clearing his throat nervously--"I have
something to tell you which will be a painful shock to you. It has
utterly unnerved me. I--I would not have dreamed that such an
astounding discovery could come to pass and at this late date it is
particularly distressing----"
"Better permit me to tell her, Ripley." Mason North rose heavily to
his feet and stood with one pudgy hand braced upon the table as if for
support. "The mistake was mine in too eagerly grasping the obvious as
proof.--My dear Wil--my dear girl, I am profoundly grieved, but it has
been brought to our attention that--that there are grave doubts as to
your identity! In fact, belated but seemingly irrefutable documentary
evidence appears to prove that you--you are not Willa Murdaugh!"
The girl stood like a statue, but from behind her Mrs. Halstead gasped
convulsively, and there came a little squeal in Angie's treble tones.
"Sit down, my dear." Ripley Halstead drew forward a chair and Willa
sank obediently into it, her eyes never leaving those of the attorney.
The others came in and seated themselves unbidden; all but Vernon. He
took up his stand behind Willa's chair and for a moment his hand
brushed her shoulder as if to assure her of his presence in case of
need.
"It is only just that an immediate and detailed explanation be made to
you," North continued. "I am sure it is unnecessary for me to express
my regret and sympathy, but I want you to realize that I am as entirely
at your service in every way as I was prior to this discovery.
"When I found you in Limasito and retraced your history from the time
the man known as 'Gentleman Geoff' adopted you supposedly in Topaz
Gulch, I overlooked one significant phase in his peregrinations. Willa
Murdaugh's parentage and the circumstances of her birth were in every
particular as I have told you; Ralph Murdaugh died when the baby was
two years old, his wife lost her life in a fire two years later and the
child was actually adopted by Gentleman Geoff and taken with him on his
wanderings.
"Now it has transpired that the first heavy snow of the following
winter caught him midway between two mining camps far up in the
Rockies, near Flathead Lake, Montana. Does that name recall any
memories to you?"
Willa shook her head, mutely, and the attorney after a moment's pause
went on:
"It is scarcely likely that it would, for you yourself could have been
no more than five years old at the time. However, Gentleman Geoff and
the little Willa were lost in the blizzard, and, after suffering untold
horrors, he finally made his way to the cabin of a trapper, named----"
he hesitated and glanced down at the papers beneath his hand--"named
Frank Hillery. This trapper Hillery's wife had run away with another
man some years before, leaving him with a little daughter on his hands,
a child of about five years, called Louise."
Again he paused, coughing. The Halsteads, mother and daughter, sat
spell-bound, but Willa was outwardly the coolest person in the room.
The story in its every detail was stamping itself indelibly upon her
mind and for the moment even the presence of Starr Wiley was forgotten.
"When he reached the trapper's cabin, Gentleman Geoff was blinded by
the snow, delirious and half frozen. Hillery took him in, unwrapped
the fur pack he carried on his back and discovered the body of little
Willa. She had died from exposure."
Vernon uttered a sharp exclamation, and the girl seated before him
clasped her hands tightly, but no other sign greeted Mason North's
announcement. He passed his hand across his brow and drew a deep
breath.
"Hillery buried the child and nursed Gentleman Geoff through a long
illness. It was well into the following spring when he was able to
proceed on his journey, and when he did, he took the trapper's little
daughter, Louise, with him, and called her 'Billie' as he had nicknamed
the other. His future wanderings never took him back over the same
route or to any of the places where the real Willa had been known,
consequently the substitution was never discovered until these papers
came to light. No one had visited the trapper's lonely cabin during
the period of Gentleman Geoff's presence there. Hillery deserted it
the following summer and went southward to Arizona where he eventually
died six months ago. Undoubtedly, those who had known him and passed
the cabin clearing took it for granted that the little grave was that
of his daughter, Louise, but these documents, found among Frank
Hillery's private papers after his death, bear witness in crude but
unmistakable fashion to the agreement between the two men and the
adoption of little Louise by Gentleman Geoff."
Mason North seated himself once more with a gesture of relief that the
bomb was exploded, and all eyes turned to Willa.
"How is it, then, that I remember the fire in which my mother was
destroyed?" She was wholly innocent of an intention to defend her
position, but asked her question in the first bewildering shock,
unconscious of the fact which her form of speech betrayed, that she
could not all at once disassociate herself from the identity she had
accepted only a few short weeks before. "Why, I even recall vaguely a
song which the woman I supposed must have been my mother used to sing
all the time, though I cannot quite bring it back to my mind. I am
sure if I heard it once, I should remember!"
The attorney visibly hesitated, and it was Ripley Halstead who replied
as gently as possible:
"Often one believes that one can recall experiences of their very early
years which they have actually learned from hearsay, from countless
repetition in their presence."
"But Dad never spoke of that time in Nevada; he never once referred to
it to the very hour of his death! I recall vaguely being lost in the
snow and I have often heard Dad speak of Hillery's kindness and care;
he used to say that the trapper had saved both our lives. A number of
people in Limasito have heard the story from his own lips, Jim Baggott
and Henry Bailey and Rufe Terwilliger--but Rufe is dead now, he was
killed in El Negrito's raid----"
She paused as if a hand had closed suddenly about her throat, while a
tiny patch of color crept into each cheek and her eyes, large and
luminous and swiftly keen, sought Starr Wiley's. Her clasped hands
tightened, then relaxed and a little smile hovered about her lips once
more; a coolly calculating, somewhat grim little smile. The story had
engrossed her for the moment to the exclusion of all else, but mention
of the raid recalled her sharply to the presence of its instigator.
Wiley's vague threats were plain to her now, his purpose practically
achieved. He had kept his word, he had exposed her, but was her early
memory indeed tricking her? Was this latest revelation true, and had
he actually stumbled upon authentic records, or manufactured them to
avenge himself upon her and eliminate her from his path? Willa's mind
still groped in a quandary, but every instinct within her arose to
combat.
"Why would Dad have mentioned Hillery at all, if he did not intend that
I should ever learn the truth?" she asked quietly. "Indeed, why did he
adopt the trapper's little daughter and call her by the other's name?"
"Well," Ripley Halstead replied after a swift glance at the attorney as
if for help, "probably he had grown fond of the dead child and wanted
another to take her place."
"He undoubtedly did!" It was the first time Starr Wiley spoke in the
girl's presence and a short ugly laugh accompanied the remark. "Not
wholly because he had taken a liking to Willa Murdaugh, however. Why
blink the facts, Mr. Halstead? It is plain on the face of it that he
must have looked up the real Willa's parentage and connections, and
realized that the storm had robbed him of a potential heiress in whose
probable inheritance he would sometime have shared----"
"That is a lie." Willa's tones rang out without passion but clarion
clear in her absolute certitude. "Anyone who knew Dad ever so slightly
would testify to its falseness. Why did he not keep himself informed
of my grandfather's changing attitude and come forward and claim the
inheritance when the search for me began? Whether I am Willa Murdaugh
or not, there can be at least no reason why I should remain to hear the
memory of the finest man who ever lived defiled by such a base
imputation. If you will excuse me now----"
She half rose from her chair, but Starr Wiley forestalled her.
"Your pardon--I will go." He bowed with an undercurrent of mockery in
his suave manner. "Naturally, Miss Billie, you resent my interference
in your career and I deplore the fact that the onerous duty should have
fallen upon my shoulders. However, it was a duty, no matter how
repugnant, and I could do no less than place the facts before Mr. North
and Mr. Halstead. I am sure my attitude requires no defense and I
trust, when you will have had time to think matters over calmly, you
will not blame me too bitterly. Believe me, I would have spared you,
gladly, had it been compatible with my sense of the right. It is long
past midnight, and I will leave you, if you will permit me, Mr. North."
He turned deferentially to the attorney, but not before Willa had
caught the significance with which he mentioned the hour. Twelve
o'clock had struck, indeed, as he had prophesied, for this latter-day
Cinderella, and the pumpkin coach had vanished. The story differed
only in that there was no fairy prince to find her once again; he had
vanished, too, stripped of his splendor, but before the magic hour.
Or, rather, he had never existed save in the exalted fancy of the girl
back there in Limasito!
Cinderella must pick up her slipper herself, and go forth into the
world.