Murray Van Rensselaer was roused from the relaxation which the luxury
of soap and water had brought to him by the sound of Mrs. Summers’
voice and a tap at the bath-room door.
“Your suit is ready on the bed, and I took the liberty of laying out
some underclothes and things which I found in the trunk. Will it take
you long to dress? I don’t want my oysters to get tough.”
“I’ll be with you in no time now,” he called gaily, as he scrubbed
away feebly with one of the big Turkish towels. He was beginning to
realize all he was in for. Where would he get shaving things? He was
not used to shaving himself often either. He had depended on his man
so long. But perhaps that trunk would have some things in it. Darn it
all! Suppose that suit didn’t fit after she had taken so much trouble
pressing it. He would simply have to make a dive out of the window if
it didn’t. Or stay. He could say they had sent the wrong trunk! Only
how would she account for the fact that he hadn’t noticed it when she
took out the suit? Well, he needn’t cross the bridge till he came to it.
He gathered up his coarse garments, enveloped himself in a towel, and
with a hasty survey of the hall, made a dive into “his room,” feeling
as if he had already weathered several storms.
There on the bed lay garments, and fearfully he put forth his hand
and examined them. They were pleasant garments, smooth and fine; not
perhaps so fine as the heir of the house of Van Rensselaer had been
wont to wear, and still, good enough to feel luxurious after the ones
he had picked up by the way on his journeys, and used as a disguise.
He climbed tentatively into them and found that they fitted very
well--a little loose on his lean body, grown leaner now with enforced
privation, but still a very respectable fit.
Everything was there, even to necktie and collar, even to buttons put
into the shirt. What a mother that woman was! Fancy his mother doing a
thing like that, putting buttons in a shirt! And hunting out all those
garments just as if she had been a man! Well, she was great! He had a
passing regret that he could not remain and enjoy her longer, but at
least he was thankful for this brief touch with a life like that. Well,
he would remember it, and some time, when--no! There would never be any
time when he could, of course. He was a murderer and an outlaw. But if
there had been, she would have been a sweet memory to put by to think
of, a kind of ideal in a world that knew no ideals. There had been
fellows in college, a few, that looked as if they had homes and mothers
like this. He hadn’t realized then what made them different, but this
must have been it. They had homes, and mothers. He began to envy the
chap whose name was Allan Murray. What a winter he would have in this
room, sitting by that fire reading those books. He had never been much
of a reader himself, but now as he slid his feet into the shoes that
were a whole size too large for him, and glanced up at the comfortable
chair and the light and the gleaming blue and red and gold of the backs
of those books, he thought it might be a pleasant occupation. In fact,
almost anything that kept one at home and gave one rest and peace
seemed heaven to him now.
The bath had refreshed him and given him a brief spurt of strength, and
now that he was again attired in clean garments, and looked fairly like
a respectable young man once more, his courage rose. He had managed the
old-fashioned razor very well indeed for one as unskilled in caring for
himself as he was, and his clean-shaven face looked back at him now
from the big old mahogany-framed mirror with a fairly steady glance.
He wasn’t so bad-looking after all. There were heavy shadows under his
eyes, and he looked thin and tired, and there was an almost peevish
resemblance to his mother in his face that he had never noticed before;
but still, nobody would ever look upon him just casually and take him
for a murderer. And here, for the time being, he was protected by
another man’s identity and name. If that chap Allan Murray only didn’t
turn up in the midst of proceedings why perhaps he could even venture
to get a little dinner, if things didn’t get too thick. Of course he
could always bolt if there were any signs of the other fellow coming
to life. It was to be hoped that he at least had sustained a sprained
ankle in the wreck that would keep him till morning, or till a late
train that night. He hated the idea of having to go off with the other
fellow’s clothes. They might be some he was fond of, and maybe he
couldn’t afford to buy many. But he had a good job ahead of him, and
he’d probably pull through--teller of a bank! That must bring a tidy
salary. And anyhow, if a fellow was a murderer why not be a thief also?
One was an outlaw anyway. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
Besides, would that other fellow stop at a suit of clothes if his life
was at stake? And the reputation of his fine old family? I ask you.
His meditations were broken by a pleasant voice chanting:
“Are you ready, Allan Murray? My oysters will be tough if they have to
wait another minute!” And there was that in her voice that made him
respond cheerily much in the same spirit:
“Yes, I’m coming, Mrs. Summers. Be with you right immediately.” And
that was the first that his real inner consciousness knew or had
admitted to it, that he really meant to dare to go to that supper.
He snatched a nice white hair-brush and brushed his hair vigorously,
parting it in a way he had never done before, and bungled a knot in the
blue tie she had laid out; then, grasping a gray felt hat that seemed
to wink at him from the tray of the trunk, he hurried down-stairs, as
pleasant-appearing a young man as ever one would need to see. He caught
a glimpse of himself in a long old mirror between two windows in the
living-room as he came down-stairs, and he said to himself:
“Why, I don’t look in the least like myself. I look a new man. Nobody
would ever dream that I’m a murderer!”
He carried two pans of scalloped oysters across the lawn to the church,
while Mrs. Summers walked beside him and carried the third, and guided
him to the church kitchen door. Now, here would be a good chance to
escape when she went inside the kitchen, only he would simply have to
take one of those pans of oysters with him, for they were making him
giddy now with their delicious odor. He wished he had remembered to
bring his old overcoat with him, for it was cold out here in the chill
November air.
But Mrs. Summers gave him no chance to escape. She swung the door open
and ushered him inside, where he was surrounded by a bevy of young
people, who fairly took him into their arms with welcome, and almost
carried him on their shoulders into a great banquet-hall, where tables
were set with flowers and overflowing plates of good things, and the
odors of wonderful food were more than human starving man could resist.
He let them shut the door and draw him inside. Only, when he lifted
his eyes and met the eyes of one girl in blue whom they introduced as
Anita, and who looked at him as if she knew he was a sham, and despised
him, did he come to himself and wish he could run away.
But Anita dealt her glancing blows and passed indifferently, and he was
hurried eagerly into the banquet-room, and placed in the seat of honor
beside the minister, who had also just arrived.
There was a great excitement, for some one had just come in with grave
face and open evening paper, stating that the name of Allan Murray was
among those who were seriously injured in the wreck.
Murray couldn’t help feeling a twinge of relief and security as he
heard that. At least he could eat his dinner in peace, without any
more likelihood than there had been for the last three weeks that he
would be apprehended and lodged in jail before the meal was over.
But his relief was but short-lived, for another difficulty approached.
The minister leaned over, smiling, and said in a low tone:
“Murray, they’re going to call on you to ask a blessing.”
Murray’s heart stood still, and he felt a trembling sensation creeping
over him, as if the enemy after a brief respite had him in sight again.
Whatever a blessing was, he didn’t know. If the man had asked him to
“say grace,” he might have understood. But a “blessing”! Well, whatever
it was, he had best keep out of it, so, gripping his self-control
together again, he endeavored to look as if nothing extraordinary had
been asked of him, and leaned engagingly toward the minister.
“Doctor, I hope you’ll excuse me from doing anything tonight. I’m
simply all in. That wreck--!”
“Oh, certainly,” the minister hastened to assure him. “I shouldn’t have
asked, and of course everybody will understand. But you are so well
known as an active Christian worker, you know, that it was but natural
to feel it appropriate. Still, of course I understand. I’ll just tell
the young president of this affair how it is, and she’ll excuse you. I
guess you must have a good appetite by this time if you’ve just arrived
from the wreck?” he finished kindly.
“I’ll say!” said Murray, glad that there was one question he could
answer truthfully.
Then suddenly a silence spread over the entire chattering company,
and Murray looked up to see the girl in blue, the one that had looked
through him with scorn, whom they called Anita, standing at the middle
table on the opposite side of the room, about to speak.
“Mr. Harrison, will you ask God’s blessing?”
Her voice rang clear, and her eyes seemed to sweep the speaker’s table
where he sat, and touch him with a slight look of disapproval. Somehow
he felt that that girl was suspecting him. It was almost like having
a police officer standing over there looking at him. It gave him a
feeling that if he should dare get up and try to slide away unnoticed,
she would immediately call the whole company to order and have him
seized.
These things had for the moment engrossed his mind so that he had not
taken in what the girl had been saying. But all at once he noticed
that everybody in the room but himself was sitting with bent head in
an attitude of prayer. At least, everybody except one girl. It was
perhaps the ardent furtive glance in Jane’s eyes raised from a bent
head to watch him that finally called him to himself, and made him
involuntarily close his eyes and bend his head. He felt as if he had
been caught thinking by Jane, and that there was no knowing but she
would interpret his thoughts. She seemed so almost uncanny in her
ability to creep into intimacy without encouragement.
But his eyes once closed, the words of Anita came back to him like an
echo, especially that word “blessing.” It was the same unusual word
the minister had used, and he had used it in much the same phrase,
“Ask a blessing.” So this was what they meant, make a prayer! Gosh! Was
that what they had wanted him to do? What he was supposed to be able
to do? He had indeed assumed a difficult character, and one he would
never have voluntarily chosen. What should he do about it? Would it
happen again? And could he invent another excuse, or would that lay him
open too much to suspicion? What did they say when they made a prayer
over a table like that? Could he fake a prayer? He had tried faking
almost everything. He was known at home as a great mimic. But to mimic
something about which he knew nothing would be a more difficult task
than any he had ever before undertaken in that line. He set his mind to
listen to the words that were being spoken.
The first thing he noticed about this “blessing” business was that
the minister was talking in a conversational tone of voice, as if
addressing some other mortal; though with a deferential tone as to
One in Authority, yet on a familiar, friendly basis. The tone was so
intimate, so assured, as if addressed to one the speaker knew would
delight to honor his request, that Murray actually opened the fringes
of one eye a trifle to make sure the man by his side was not addressing
a visible presence.
There was something beautiful and strong and tender about the face of
the minister with his eyes closed, standing there in the hush of the
candle-lighted tables, the tips of his long, strong fingers touching
the tablecloth, the candle-light flickering on his rugged face, peace
upon his brow, that impressed Murray tremendously in the brief glance
he dared take. And the words from those firm lips were no less awesome.
A thrill of something he had never quite experienced before ran down
his spine, a thrill not altogether unpleasant.
Those words! They sank into his soul like an altogether new lesson that
was being learned. Could he ever repeat it and dare to try to get away
with a prayer like that?
“We thank Thee for the new friend that has come among us to live, who
is not a stranger, because he is the son of those whom we have long
loved and known. We thank Thee for the beautiful lives of his honored
father and mother, who at one time walked among us, and the fragrance
of whose living still lingers in the memory of some of us who loved
them. We thank Thee also that he is not only born of the flesh into the
kingdom, but that he has been born again, of the Spirit, and therefore
is our brother in Christ Jesus--”
There was more to that “blessing,” although the stranger guest did
not hear it. He felt somehow strangely ashamed as these statements of
thanksgiving fell from the pastor’s lips, as though he were being held
up to honor before One who knew better, who was looking him through
and through with eyes that could not be deceived. So now there were
two in that room whose eyes were hostile, who knew that he was false,
that he did not belong there, the girl they called Anita, and the
Invisible One whose blessing was being invoked. And while he felt a
reasonable assurance that he could escape and flee from the presence
of that scornful girl, he knew in his heart that he could never get
away from the other, who was the One they called God. God had never
been anything in his life but a name to trifle with. Never once before
had he felt any personality or reality to that name God. It filled him
with amazement that was appalling in its strangeness. He felt that
life hitherto had not prepared him for anything like a fact of this
sort. Of course he knew there were discussions of this sort, but they
had never come near enough to him for him even to have recognized an
opinion about them before. Why they did now he did not understand. But
he felt suddenly that he must get out of that room; even if he starved
to death, or was shot on the way, he must get away from there.
He opened his eyes cautiously, glanced about furtively for the nearest
unguarded exit, and saw the eyes of Jane watching him greedily. She
even met his glance with a feather of a smile flitting across her
mobile young lips; a nice enough comradely smile, if he only had
been in the mood to notice, and if she hadn’t been so persistent and
forward; but it annoyed him. He closed his eyes quickly as if they
had not been opened, and when he tried to glance about again took the
other direction, where he thought he remembered seeing a door into a
passageway.
But a dash of blue blocked the passageway. Somehow Anita, in the blue
gown, had got there from her position at the other end of the room.
She was standing, leaning against the door frame almost as if she
were tired. Her shapely little head rested against the wall, and her
eyes were closed. There was almost a weary look in the droop of her
lips, and the way she held the silver tray down by her side. Somehow
she seemed different now when she was not looking at him. There was
something attractive about her, a sweet good look that made him think
of something pleasant. What was it? Oh! _Bessie!_
Like a sharp knife the thought went through his heart. Yes, Bessie had
a good sweet look like this girl, and Bessie would have had eyes of
scorn for any one who was not true to the core. Up in heaven somewhere,
if there was such a place as heaven--and now that he was sure he had
lost it he began to believe that there was--Bessie was looking down on
him with scorn. A murderer, he was, and a coward! Here he was sitting
at a meal that was not his, wearing a suit and a name that were not
his, hearing God’s blessing invoked upon him and his, and too much of
a coward to confess it and take his medicine. Obviously he could not
steal out now with that blue dress blocking the way. He must stay here
and face worse perhaps than if he had never run away. What had he let
himself in for in assuming even for a brief hour another man’s name
and position in life? It was clear that this Allan Murray, whom he was
supposed to be, was a religious man, come of religious parents; so much
of his new-found character he had learned from the minister’s prayer.
Now how in time was he to carry out a character like that and play the
part? He with the burden of a murderer’s conscience upon him!
The “blessing” was over, to his infinite relief, and a bevy of girls
in white aprons, with fluttering ribbon badges and pretty trays, were
set immediately astir. The minister turned to him with a question
about the wreck, and he recalled vaguely that there had also been a
word of thanksgiving in that prayer about the great escape he was
supposed to have made. He grasped at the idea eagerly, and tried to
steer the conversation away from himself and into general lines of
railroad accidents, switching almost immediately and unconsciously
to the relative subject of automobile accidents; and then stopping
short in the midst of a sentence, dumb, with the thought that he had
killed Bessie in an automobile accident, and here he was talking about
it--telling with vivid words how a man would drive and take risks, and
get used to it. Where was it he had heard that a guilty man could not
help talking about his guilt, and letting out to a trained detective
the truth about himself?
His face grew white and strained, and the minister eyed him kindly.
“You’re just about all in, aren’t you?” he said sympathetically. “I
know just how it is. One can’t go through scenes like that without
suffering, even though one escapes unscathed himself. I was on a train
not long ago that struck a man and killed him. It was days before I
could get rested. There is something terrible about the nerve-strain of
seeing others suffer.”
And Murray thankfully assented and enjoyed a moment’s quiet while he
took a mouthful of the delicious fruit that stood in a long-stemmed
glass on his plate.
But the minister’s next sentence appalled him:
“Well, we won’t expect a speech from you tonight, though I’ll confess
we had been hoping in that direction. You see, your fame has spread
before you, and everybody is on the _qui vive_ to hear you. But I’ll
just introduce you to them sometime before the end of the program,
and you can merely get up and let them see you officially. I know Mr.
Harper will be expecting something of that sort, and I suppose you’ll
want to please him. You see, he makes a great deal of having found a
Christian young man for teller in his bank.”
The minister looked at him kindly, evidently expecting a reply, and
Murray managed to murmur, “I see,” behind his napkin, but he felt that
he would rather be hung at sunrise than attempt to make a speech under
these circumstances. So that was his new character, was it? A Christian
young man! A young Christian banker! How did young Christian bankers
act? He was glad for the tip that showed him what was expected of him,
but how in thunder was he to get away with this situation? A speech
was an easy enough matter in his own set. It had never bothered him at
all. In fact, he was much sought after for this sort of thing. Repartee
and jest had been his strong points. He had stories bubbling full of
snappy humor on his tongue’s tip. But when he came to review them in
his panic-stricken mind he was appalled to discover that not one was
suitable for a church supper on the lips of a young Christian banker!
Oh gosh! If he only had a drink! Or a cigarette! Didn’t any of these
folks smoke? Weren’t they going to pass the cigarettes pretty soon?
X
Somewhere about half-past ten that supper was over. It seemed more like
a week to the weary wanderer, though they professed to be hurrying
through their program because he must be tired.
He really had had a very good time, in spite of the strangeness of the
situation and his anxiety lest his double might appear on the scene at
any moment to undo him. He had tried to think what he would say or do
in case that should happen, but he could only plan to bolt through the
nearest entrance, regardless of any parishioner who might be carrying
potato salad or ice-cream, and take advantage of the natural confusion
that would arise in the event of the return of another hero.
Having settled that matter satisfactorily, his easy, fun-loving nature
actually arose to a moderate degree of enjoyment of the occasion. He
had always taken a chance, a big chance, and in this kindly, admiring
atmosphere his terror, that had driven him from one point to another
during the last few weeks, had somewhat subsided. It was more than
half-way likely that the man he was supposed to be was either hurt
seriously or dead, seeing that they had had no direct word from him,
and it was hardly probable he would appear at the supper at this late
hour, even if he did get a later train to Marlborough. So, gradually,
the tense muscles of his face relaxed, the alert look in his eyes
changed to a normal twinkle, for he was a personable young man when
he was in his own sphere, and his tongue began to be loosed. As his
inner man began to be satisfied with the excellent food, and he drank
deeply of the black coffee with which they plied him, he found a feeble
pleasure in his native wit. His conversation was not exactly what might
have been termed religious, but he managed to keep out of it many
illusions that would not have fitted the gathering. He was by no means
stupid, and some inner sense must have taught him, for he certainly
was among a class of people to whom his previous experience gave him
no clue. They were just as eager and just as vivacious over the life
they were living and the work they were doing as ever the people with
whom he was wont to associate were over their play. In fact, they
seemed somehow to be happier, more satisfied, and he marvelled as he
grew more at his ease among them. He felt as if he had suddenly dropped
out of his own universe and into a different world, run on entirely
different principles. For instance, they talked intermittently, and
with deep concern, about a man whom they called John, who was suffering
with rheumatic fever. It appeared that they went every day to see him,
that he seemed of great importance to their whole group; some of them
spoke of having spent the night with him, and of feeling intensely his
suffering, as if it were their own, and of collecting a fund wherewith
to surprise him on his birthday. They spoke of him with honor and
respect, as if he were one with many talents, whom they deeply loved.
They even spoke of his smile when they came into his sick-room, and
of the hothouse roses that some one had sent him, how he enjoyed
them. And then quite casually it came out that the man was an Italian
day-laborer, a member of a Mission Sunday-school which this church
was supporting! Incredible story! Quite irrational people! Love a
day-laborer! A foreigner! Why, they had spoken of him as if he were one
of their associates!
He looked into their faces and saw something beautiful; perhaps he
would have named it “love” if he had known more about that virtue; or
perchance he might have called it “spiritual” if he had been brought
up to know anything but the material in life. As it was he named it
“queer,” and let it go at that. But he liked it. They fascinated him.
A wild fancy passed through his mind that if he ever had to be tried
for murder he would like it to be here, among a people who thought and
talked as these people did. They at least would not judge him before he
had been tried. They were even fair and just and kind to common people
whom one never expected to do right, of course, in the world where he
came from. Then it flashed across him that he was not being square with
these people. They thought him like themselves, and he was not. He did
not even know what they meant by some of the things they said.
Between such weird thoughts as this he certainly enjoyed his dinner,
wineless and smokeless even though it was. There was a taste about
everything that reminded him of the days when he used to go up to Maine
as a little boy, and spend the summers with his father’s maiden sister,
Aunt Rebecca, long since dead. Things had tasted that way there,
wonderful, delectable, as if you wanted to eat on forever, as if
they were all real, and made with love. Queer how that word love kept
coming to him. Ah! Yes, and there was Mrs. Chapparelle. She used to
cook that way, too. It must be when people cooked with their own hands
instead of hiring it done that it tasted that way. Mrs. Chapparelle and
the pancakes, and the strawberry shortcake with cream, made of light
puffy biscuit, with luscious berries between, and lots of sugar. Mrs.
Chapparelle! Her face had begun to fade from his haunted brain since
the night he had looked into her kitchen window and had seen her go
briskly to the door in answer to the ring. What had she met when she
opened that door? A white-robed nurse, and behind her men bearing a
corpse? Or had they had the grace to send some one to break the news
first?
The thought struck him suddenly from out the gaiety of the evening, and
he lifted a blanched face to Anita as she put before him his second
helping of ice-cream and another cup of coffee.
And he was a murderer! He had killed little Bessie Chapparelle, a girl
a good deal like this Anita girl, clean and fine, with high ideals.
What would these people, these kind, good people, think of him if
they knew? What would they do? Would they put handcuffs on him and
send for the police? Or would they sit down and try to help him out
of his trouble? He half wished that he dared put himself upon their
mercy. That minister now. He looked like a real father! But of course
he would have to uphold the law. And of course there wasn’t anything
to do but hang him when he had killed a little girl like Bessie! Not
that he cared about the hanging. His life was done. But for the sake of
his mother, who had never taken much time out of her social duties to
notice him, and the father who had paid his bills and bawled him out,
he was running away, he told himself, so that they would not have to
suffer. Just how that was saving them from suffering he didn’t quite
ever try to explain to himself. He was running away so there would not
be any trial to drag his father and mother through. That was it.
He ate his ice-cream slowly, trying to get a hold upon himself once
more, and across the room Anita and Jane happened to be standing
together for an instant in a doorway.
“Isn’t he stunningly handsome, Anita? Aren’t you just crazy about him?”
whispered Jane effusively.
“He’s good-looking enough,” admitted Anita, “but I’m afraid he knows it
too well.”
“Well, how could he help it, looking like that?” responded the ardent
Jane, and flitted away to take him another plate of cake.
But the crowning act of his popularity came when Mr. Harper, president
of the bank, senior elder in the church, and honored citizen, came
around to speak with the young man and welcome him to the town. He had
been detained and came in late, being rushed to his belated supper by
the good women of the committee. He had only now found opportunity to
look up the new teller and speak to him.
Murray rose with a charming air of deference and respect, and stood
before the elder man with all the ease that his social breeding
had given him. He listened with flattering attention while the bank
president told him how glad he was to have a Christian young man in his
employ, and how he hoped they would grow to be more than employer and
employed.
Murray had dreaded this encounter if it should prove necessary, as
he feared the president would have met his young teller before this
occasion, and would discover that he was not the right man. But Elliot
Harper stood smiling and pleased, looking the young man over with
apparently entire confidence, and Murray perceived that so far he was
not discovered.
It was easy enough to assent, and be deferential. The trouble would
come when they began to ask him questions. He had settled it in his
mind quite early in the evening that his strong point was to be as
impersonal as possible, not to make any statements whatever about
himself that could possibly not be in harmony with the character of the
man he represented, as he thought they knew him, and to make a point of
listening to others so well that they should think he had been talking.
That was a little trick he learned long ago in college when he wanted
to get on the right side of a professor. It came back quite naturally
to him now.
So he stood with his handsome head slightly bowed in deference and his
eyes fixed in eager attention, and the entire assembly fastened their
eyes upon him, and admired.
That might possibly be called the real moment when the town, at least
those representatives of the town that were present, might be said to
have opened their arms and taken him into their number. How he would
meet Mr. Harper was the supreme test. With one accord they believed in
Mr. Harper. He stood to them for integrity and success. They adored Mr.
Harrison, their minister, and confided to him all their troubles; they
had firm belief in his creed, and his undoubted faith and spirituality;
they knew him as a man of God, and respected his wonderful mind and his
consistent living; but they tremendously admired the keen mind, clear
business ability, coupled with the staunch integrity, of their wealthy
bank president, Elliot Harper. Therefore they awaited his leading
before they entirely surrendered to the new young man who had come to
live in their midst.
Murray Van Rensselaer felt it in the atmosphere as he sat down. He
had not lived in an air of admiration all his life for nothing. This
was his native breath, and it soothed his racked nerves and gave him
that quiet satisfaction with himself that he had been wont to feel
ever since he was old enough to know that his father was Charles Van
Rensselaer, the successful financier and scion of an ancient family.
He had borne the test and the time was up. Now, any time, in a
moment or two, he could get away, melt into the darkness, and forget
Marlborough. They would wonder, and be indignant for a day or a week,
but they would never find him nor know who he was. He would simply
be gone. And then very likely in a day or two the other man that he
had been representing for the evening would either turn up or have a
funeral or something, and they would discover his fraud. But there
would in all probability be an interval in which he could get safely
to a distance and be no more. He had gained a dinner, and a pleasant
evening, a little respite in the nightmare that had pursued him since
the accident, and he had a kindly feeling toward these people. They had
been nice to him. They had showed him a genuineness that he could not
help but admire. He liked every one of them, even the offish Anita,
who had a delicate profile like Bessie’s, and the ridiculous Jane, who
could not take her eyes from him. Now that he was an outcast he must
treasure even such friendliness, for there would be little of that sort
of thing left for him in the world hereafter. He could not hope to
hood-wink people this way the rest of his life.
He felt a sudden pang at the thought of throwing this all away. It
had been wonderfully pleasant, so different from anything he had ever
experienced among his own crowd--an atmosphere of loving kindness
like what he used to find at Chapparelle’s, which made the thought of
stolen evenings spent in the company of Bessie seem wonderfully fresh
and sweet, and free from taint of any selfishness or sordidness. How
different, for instance, these girls were from the girls at home. Even
that Jane had a childlikeness about her that was refreshing. How he
would enjoy lingering to play with these new people who treated him so
charmingly, just as he had lingered sometimes in new summer resorts for
a little while to study new types of girls and frolic a while. It would
be pleasant, _how_ pleasant, to eat three good meals a day and have
people speak kind words and try to forget that he was a murderer and
an outlaw. If he were in a foreign land now he might even dare it. But
four hundred miles was a short distance where newspapers and telegraph
and radio put everything within the same room, so to speak. No, he must
get out, and get out quickly. There would likely be a late train, and
perhaps his other self would arrive on it. If possible he would have
to get away without going back to Mrs. Summers’, but at least if he
went back he must not linger there. He could make some excuse, run out
for medicine to the drug-store, perhaps, or, if worst came to worst,
pretend to go up to bed and then steal away after she was asleep. There
would be a way!
His resilient nature allowed him to feel wonderfully cheerful as he
arose from the table at last and prepared to make his adieus.
But it was not easy, after all, to get away. Mrs. Summers came to him
and asked him if he would mind carrying a basket home for her, she
wouldn’t be a minute, and then pressed him into service to gather up
silver candlesticks and a few rare china dishes.
“You see they’re borrowed,” she explained, “and I don’t like to risk
leaving them here lest some one will be careless with them in the
morning before I could get over, or mix them up and take them to the
wrong person. I wouldn’t like them to get broken or lost under my care.”
They walked together across the lawn under a belated moon that had
struggled through the clouds and was casting silver slants over the
jewelled brown of the withered grass.
“It’s been so lovely having you here,” said Mrs. Summers gently,
“almost like having my boy back again. I kept looking at you and
thinking, ‘He’s my boy. He’s coming home every night, and I can take
care of him just as I did with my own.’”
Murray’s heart gave a strange lurch. Nobody had ever spoken to him like
that. Love, except in a tawdry form, had never come his way, unless his
father’s gruffness and continual fault-finding might be called love. It
certainly had been well disguised so that he had never thought of it
in that light. It had rather seemed to him, when he thought about it
at all, that he stood to his father more in the light of an obligation
than anything else. His mother’s love had been too self-centred and
too peevish to interest him. There had been teachers occasionally who
had been fond of him, but their interest had passed when he used them
to slide out of school work. There had been a nurse in his babyhood
that he barely remembered, who used to comfort him when he was hurt
or sleepy, and sometimes when he was sick cuddle him in her arms as
if she cared for him, but that was so very far away. He had sometimes
watched the look between Bessie Chapparelle and her mother when he
would be there playing games of an evening with the little girl, a look
that had made him think of the word love; but that also was far away
and very painful now to think about. Strange how one’s thoughts will
snatch a bit from every part of one’s life and blend them together in
an idea which takes but an instant to grasp, just as a painter will
take a snatch of this and a dab of that color and blend them all into
a tint, with no hint of the pink or the blue, or the black, or the
yellow, or the white, that may have gone to form it, making just a
plain gray cloud. Murray was doing more thinking these last few days
than he had ever done in the whole of his life before. Life, as it
were, was painting pictures on his mind, wonderful living truths that
he had never seen before were flashing on the canvas of his brain, made
up of the facts of his past life which at the time had passed over him
unnoticed. He had gone from his cradle like one sliding down-hill and
taking no note of the landscape. But he found now that he had suddenly
reached the bottom of the hill, and had to climb up (if indeed he might
ever attain to any heights again), that he knew every turning of the
way he had come, and wondered how he could have been unheeding before.
It occurred to him that this phenomenon might be called “growing up.”
Trouble had come and he had grown up. Life had turned back on him and
slapped him in the face, and he began to see things in life, now he had
lost them, that he had not even recognized before.
As he slipped his arm through the big basket and stood waiting for
Mrs. Summers to decide whose cake-pan the big square aluminum one
was, he looked wistfully about him on the disarray of tables, a kind
of hungering in his heart to come here again and feast and bask in
the cheery comforting atmosphere. Good and sweet and wholesome it
all was, a sort of haven for his weary soul that was condemned to
plod on throughout his days without a place for his foot to remain,
forevermore. He had a strange, tired feeling in his throat as if he
would like to cry, like a child who has come to the end of the good
time, and whose bubbles are broken and vanished. There would be no
more bubbles for him any more. The bowl of soap-suds was broken.
And so as they walked toward the little cottage with its gleaming light
awaiting them from the dining-room window he felt strangely sad and
lonely, and he wished with all his heart that he might walk in and be
this woman’s boy. If only he could be born again into her home and
claim her as his mother, and take the place as her son and be a new
man, with all his past forgotten! He thought--poor soul, he had not yet
learned the subtlety of sin, the frailty of human nature--he thought
if he could be in this environment, with such people about him, such a
home to come to, and such a mother to love him, he could learn to fit
it. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of the other man coming he
would have dared to try it and keep up his masquerade.