MRS. MURRAY’S ANGUISH.
Italy Vale waited with burning impatience for Mr. Gardner’s decision.
The day waned to its close, the purple shades of early twilight
darkened, and the silver sickle of a new moon rose in the opal sky,
still no word, no answer. She had been pacing the floor of her room for
hours with a pale face and a wildly throbbing heart.
“Why does he delay like this when he knows how impatient I am? Is it
possible he can have forgotten?” she cried resentfully, pushing back
the dark curls from her brow that burned with a feverish heat.
At that moment Mrs. Mays tapped lightly on the door.
“He is come,” she thought gladly, and sprang to open it.
“Miss Vale,” said the kindly landlady, “there is a messenger-boy below
from a law-office wishing to see you.”
With a low cry of something like terror, Italy started back, her face
paling to a ghastly hue.
She thought of what Isabel Severn had told her about the office-boy at
Mr. Gardner’s, who was watching for her face and would know it anywhere
again.
“I must not let him see me,” she told herself wildly.
“Why, what is the matter, my dear young lady? You seem to be
frightened!” exclaimed Mrs. Mays, in a tone of surprise that put Italy
quickly upon her guard. She exclaimed with a groan:
“Oh, no, Mrs. Mays, I am not frightened, but I have a severe attack of
facial neuralgia, and am suffering too much to see any one, or at least
a stranger. Will you not do me the kindness to go down and tell the boy
that if he has a letter or message for me he must deliver it to you?”
“Certainly, my dear,” and she bustled away, while Italy murmured
bitterly:
“Mr. Gardner refuses my prayer. That is why he sends a message instead
of coming himself. He cannot meet my reproaches.”
She was right, for presently Mrs. Mays returned with a letter, saying:
“The boy went away without waiting for an answer.”
Then, seeing that the young girl preferred to be alone, she withdrew,
after saying kindly:
“If there is anything I can do for your dreadful neuralgia, ring
your bell, and I will come at once.” Italy thanked her, with a blush
stealing over her face at the falsehood she had uttered.
“To what depths I have fallen in this cruel necessity for caution,” she
thought sadly, and tore open her note. She read:
“MY DEAR MISS VALE: After a careful review in my mind of all that I
know and all that you said to me yesterday morning, my opinion of the
case remains unchanged.
“I believe that the wisest plan for you is to remain satisfied
with the jury’s verdict given long ago in your mother’s case. That
verdict declared her innocent, or, at least, gave her the benefit
of a doubt. But should you investigate too closely it might result
in her conviction. She is dead, so it cannot harm her, only to
blacken her memory still deeper. All the obloquy would fall on you,
her helpless orphan child. Knowing this to be true, and feeling the
sincerest friendship for you, I must refuse to assist you in your own
destruction.
“I advise you earnestly to let the whole matter drop, and devote your
mind to other things more suitable and natural to a young girl than
this morbid state of feeling.
“I have spoken to my wife about you. She is deeply interested, and
will call upon you to-morrow to request you to become our guest for a
while. I hope that you will consent to do so. We will do all in our
power to further your comfort and your pleasure.
“Cordially your friend, MARK L. GARDNER.”
A moan of the cruelest disappointment came from Italy’s pale lips, and
she tore the lawyer’s letter into fragments and trampled it beneath her
feet.
“Thus do I scorn his advice,” she thought bitterly, and she resolved
that on the morrow she would seek a good lawyer and employ his services.
She scorned the idea that investigation would fix the crime either upon
her mother or Francis Murray. Her heart spoke loudly for the man who
had been so kind to her, and whose thrilling words rang in her memory
night and day:
“Italy, love, darling!”
“He loved me--loved me in spite of my suspicions of him. He was grand
and noble--he could love me in spite of all my wilfulness and my scorn
of him! Ah, but I must forget all that! My heart owned him for its
master. Oh, God, send him back to me that I may tell him how I wronged
him, and that I love him now and pray for his pardon!” sobbed Italy, in
an abandonment of bitter grief.
Ah, how cruel it is to love with all one’s heart some dear object that
is removed from us by all the breadth of earth and heaven, how cruel
when the heart swells with love that can never be uttered, when the
yearning arms fall listless, empty of caresses.
Italy wept bitterly that Francis Murray was dead, for now she knew that
she loved him with her whole heart, that to him had been given the
devotion Emmett Harlow had prayed for in vain.
Alas! she would almost have been willing to die rather than face the
hour that was hastening on so fast with its agony of keen despair. But
even as she wept in her desolation there was coming up the steps a
woman warmly wrapped from the cold of the autumn night in heavy furs
and shawls. She rang the bell, and asked for Miss Vale.
“Miss Vale is very sick with a neuralgic attack. I do not believe she
will be willing to see you, so if you have any message send it by me,”
replied Mrs. Mays, mindful of the fate of the office-boy.
The woman, who had the air and bearing of a clever lady’s-maid, handed
her a letter.
“I will wait for the answer, please, ma’am,” she said, sitting down in
the hall.
And again Mrs. Mays tapped at the door of her boarder and handed in a
letter.
“The woman that brought it is waiting for an answer,” she said, a
little curiously, for two letters in one evening both coming by
messenger, seemed rather mysterious.
“Come in, Mrs. Mays, and wait a moment. I dare say it is Miss
Audenreid’s maid with a note from her mistress. Perhaps she wants me
to go with her to the theater to-night, but I am not well enough,”
answered Italy calmly.
She broke the seal of the letter and read the contents with startled
eyes. It was from Mrs. Murray, but the writing was so blurred and
blotted as to be almost illegible, being evidently written under the
stress of strong excitement. It began abruptly:
“Italy Vale, if you have any forgiveness in your heart for the
heartless treatment of a woman who was half-crazed with grief, come to
me to-night. I have sent my maid to bring you, and she will take care
of you. Come quickly, for I have startling news for you, and I must
tell it soon, for I feel death hastening on, and when I have told it I
must lie down and die!”
The letter fell from Italy’s shaking hand, and she turned a face of
wild despair upon the kindly landlady.
“I have--bad news--Mrs. Mays,” she faltered, and the kind soul took her
in her arms and held the dark head tenderly on her breast.
“Poor dear--poor dear,” she murmured, and caressed her as if she had
been her own dark-haired Isabel.
Italy lay quiescent several moments, her heart beating wildly against
Mrs. Mays’ supporting arm. She knew quite well from that grief-stricken
message that Mrs. Murray must have news of her son’s death. There was
no longer any hope.
“Perhaps you would like to see the woman, my dear?” suggested Mrs. Mays
kindly.
“Yes, oh, yes, send her to me, please. She is sent to take me to the
death-bed of my friend, her mistress,” faltered Italy, weakly, and
the kind soul placed her on a sofa, picked up the fallen letter, and
putting it in the owner’s hand, went down-stairs again.
Italy, with her hand over her eyes, sobbed bitterly.
“Dead, dead, dead, my noble friend! Ah! no wonder that his mother’s
heart is broken.”
“Don’t take it so hard, dear Miss Vale,” murmured a kind, sympathetic
voice, and dropping her hand, she saw the face of Mrs. Murray’s maid,
an intelligent middle-aged woman, who had shown her much kindness while
she was at The Lodge.
This woman now continued:
“It is dreadful, isn’t it, her getting reliable news of her son’s
death! and all of us hoping and praying that he would turn up alive
and well some day. But that hope is over now, and she took to her bed
the minute she got the news. But she wants you. She says she’s dying,
but she can’t die till she’s seen your face again. I had to go to Mrs.
Dunn’s to find out your address, and it’s getting late, so if you
please, I’ll help you dress, so we can get back to Winthrop as soon as
possible to my poor, dear, suffering mistress.”
Mrs. Murray did indeed look like a dying woman as she lay there panting
on her bed when Italy entered softly, having removed her hat and wraps
in her own room, where the maid had first conducted her.
Ordinarily the meeting must have been an embarrassing one to both women.
They had never looked on each other’s faces since the day when Mrs.
Murray had forbidden Italy to go to the moonlight party. A few days
later she had left The Lodge by Mrs. Murray’s desire, and their
life-paths had run in separate ways.
But now the sympathy of a common sorrow had drawn the two hearts
together so closely that it was almost like a meeting of mother and
daughter.
Mrs. Murray’s awfully pale and changed face turned in mute agony to the
girl, and she half-extended her arms. Italy with a heart-breaking sob
rushed to the bed, and, falling on her knees, clung to the stricken
mother, pressing on her corpselike cheek a mute caress.
The sympathetic maid withdrew, leaving them alone together to mingle
their bitter sobs, and for a few minutes nothing was heard but those
low and mournful sounds of a mother weeping for her son, and a young
girl for her lover.
It was sad enough to move heaven and earth to pity.
At length Italy sobbed in a choking voice:
“Oh, can you forgive me for my share in his death? Oh, if only I had
not gone with him that night--if only----” her voice broke with the
convulsive heaving of her breast.
But all at once Mrs. Murray writhed herself out of the loving arms that
held her, and groaned in an agonized voice:
“You would not speak like that if you _knew_! You would not kiss me as
you did just now. You would hate me--hate me for my son’s sake!”
Her blue eyes, so dim already with bitter tears, overflowed in streams
that ran in rivers down her pallid checks. She raised herself up in bed
and clasped her pale hands together as she repeated:
“You would hate us both, Italy Vale--hate us for the wrecking of your
young life, for your father’s death, and your mother’s long agony.
Alas! alas! alas! that I have lived to see this hour!”
Her agony was piteous, and Italy stared at her in dismay. What could
she mean?
“Do you see how ill I look, Italy?” continued the half-frenzied woman.
“Well, I am dying, surely dying. My heart broke when I read that letter
from my son, and I seemed only living longer just to send for you and
to tell you, as he bade me--oh, my God!--that terrible story.”
“You have a letter from _him_--oh, then he lives, he lives!” Italy
exclaimed joyfully.
“No, child, my son is dead. And it is better so--better had he died
in his helpless infancy than lived to work such irredeemable woe!”
answered Mrs. Murray distractedly.
Then as she saw the wonder in the young girl’s beautiful, pale face,
she tried to calm herself.
“Ah, you think me mad!” she sighed. “You have no thought of the horror
that has come to me, and that is coming to you. But no, no, to you
it will be joy. The shadow of sin will be lifted from your mother’s
memory; the world will revere her as a martyr, while they execrate my
son as a demon! Ah, God! if only I might die with this story untold.
But, no, no, it is my duty to speak, though the words blast my lips--to
speak, and then die of the deadly dart that is rankling in my heart!”
It was terrible to witness the agitation of this formerly cold, proud
woman, who bore herself usually with the calm hauteur of a duchess. It
mystified Italy more and more. She began to think that Francis Murray’s
death had driven his mother insane.
“Dear Mrs. Murray, calm yourself,” she faltered. “Be brave, be
courageous. You do not know what hard and cruel things you have been
saying of your noble son!”
“My noble son! Oh, Heaven!”
And the rising wind that began to shriek dismally around the house
answered with a moan like a lost soul in pain.
A storm was rising. Old Neptune was abroad on the waves. The hoarse
murmur of the ocean as it broke in loud, sharp reports upon the beach
came in regular beats to their ears, with that subtile sense of trouble
always inspired by an angry sea.
“Come and sit in this chair close by the bed, Italy, and I will tell
you of my son’s death,” said Mrs. Murray, making a fierce effort to
control her overmastering agitation.
Italy obeyed her, but she said tenderly:
“Dear Mrs. Murray, do not speak of it to-night; you are too ill. I can
wait until to-morrow.”
“To-morrow I shall be dead. I must tell you now and quickly, for I must
not die like a coward and leave that secret untold. I must obey the
dying command of my son and reveal it all to you--it is your due, my
dear girl--only--only you must not exult in my presence, Italy, because
I could not bear it!”
And while the wind roared and the sea moaned outside, and Italy gazed
at her with somber, wondering dark eyes, she began:
“At sunset to-day there came to me a rough sailor with a letter and
a story. That night when the little dory was cut in twain by a large
vessel, my son was picked up by the crew with a dreadful wound upon
his head. He lived but a few hours, but before he died he dictated a
letter to the surgeon for me, and made them promise to deliver it on
their return from Buenos Ayres. To-day the sailor brought me the letter
signed by my son’s dying hand, and addressed by him. Oh, Italy, can you
guess what he wrote?”