Mrs. Melrose never spoke again, or showed another flicker of the clear
and normal intelligence that she had shown in the night. But she still
breathed, and the long, wet day dragged slowly, in the big, mournful old
house, until late in the unnatural afternoon. People--all sorts of
people--were coming and going now, and being answered, or being turned
away; a few privileged old friends came softly up the carpeted stairs,
and cried quietly with Annie, who looked unbelievably old and ashen
under the double shock. Norma began to hear, on all sides, respectful
and sympathetic references to "the family." The family felt this, and
would like that, the family was not seeing any one, the family must be
protected and considered in every way. The privileged old friends talked
with strange men in the lower hall, and were heard saying "I suppose so"
dubiously, to questions of hats and veils and carriages and the church.
Chris was gone all day, but at four o'clock an urgent message was sent
him, and he and Acton came into Mrs. Melrose's room about half an hour
later, for the end. His face was ghastly, and he seemed almost unable to
understand what was said to him, but he was very quiet.
Norma never forgot the scene. She knelt on one side of the bed, praying
with all the concentration and fervour that she could rally under the
circumstances. But her frightened, tired eyes were impressed with every
detail of the dark old stately bedroom none the less. This was the end
of the road, for youth and beauty and power and wealth, this sunken,
unrecognizable face, this gathering of shadows among the dull, wintry
shadows of the afternoon.
Annie was kneeling, too, her fine, unringed hands clasping one of her
mother's hands. Chris sat against the back of the bed, half-supporting
the piled pillows, in a futile attempt to make more easy the fighting
breath, and Acton and Hendrick von Behrens, grave and awed, stood beside
him, their faces full of sympathy and distress. There was an outer
fringe of nurses, doctors, maids; there was even an audible whisper from
one of them that caused Annie to frown, annoyed and rebuking, over her
shoulder.
Minutes passed. Norma, pressing her cheek against the hand she held,
began a Litany, very low. Suddenly the dying woman opened her eyes.
"Yes--yes--yes!" she whispered, eagerly, and with a break in her
frightened voice Norma began more clearly, "Our Father, Who art in
Heaven----" and they all joined in, somewhat awkwardly and uncertainly.
Mrs. Melrose sank back; she had raised herself just a fraction of an
inch to speak. Now her head fell, and Norma saw the florid colour drain
from her face as wine drains from an overturned glass. A leaden pallor
settled suddenly upon her. When the prayer was finished they
waited--eyed each other--waited again. There was no other breath.
"Doctor----" Annie cried, choking. The doctor gently laid down the limp
hand he had raised; it was already cool. And behind him the maids began
to sob and wail unrebuked.
Norma went out into the hall dazed and shaken. This was her first sight
of death. It made her feel a little faint and sick. Chris came and
talked to her for a few minutes; Annie had collapsed utterly, and was
under the doctor's care; Acton broke down, too, and Norma heard Chris
attempting to quiet him. There was audible sobbing all over the house
when, an hour or two later, Alice's beautiful body in a magnificent
casket was brought to lie in the old home beside the mother she had
adored.
The fragrance of masses and masses of damp flowers began to penetrate
everywhere, and Norma made occasional pilgrimages in to Annie's bedside,
and told her what beautiful offerings were coming and coming and coming.
Joseph had reinforcements of sympathetic, black-clad young men, who kept
opening the front door, and murmuring at the muffled telephone. Annie's
secretary, a young woman about Norma's age, was detailed by Hendrick to
keep cards and messages straight--for every little courtesy must be
acknowledged on Annie's black-bordered card within a few weeks'
time--and Norma heard Joseph telephoning several of the prominent
florists that Mr. Liggett had directed that all flowers were to come to
the Melrose house. Nothing was overlooked.
When Norma went to her room, big boxes were on the bed, boxes that held
everything that was simple and beautiful in mourning: plain, charming
frocks, a smart long seal-bordered coat, veils and gloves, small and
elegant hats, even black-bordered handkerchiefs. She dressed herself
soberly, yet not without that mournful thrill that fitness and
becomingness lends to bereavement. When she went back to Annie's side
Annie was in beautiful lengths of lustreless crape, too; they settled
down to low, sad conversation, with a few of the privileged old friends.
Chris was nowhere to be seen, but at about six o'clock Acton came in to
show them a telegram from Leslie, flying homeward. Judge Lee was
hurrying to them from Washington, and for a few minutes Annie's
handsome, bewildered little boys came in with a governess, and she cried
over them, and clung to them forlornly.
After a distracted half-hour in the dining-room, when she and Acton and
Annie's secretary had soup and salad from a sort of buffet meal that was
going on there indefinitely, Norma went upstairs to find that the door
to the front upper sitting-room, closed for hours, was set ajar, and to
see a vague mass of beautiful flowers within--white and purple flowers,
and wreaths of shining dark round leaves. With a quick-beating heart she
stepped softly inside, and went to kneel at the nearer coffin, and cover
her face with her shaking hands. The thick sweetness of the wet leaves
and blossoms enveloped her. Candles were burning; there was no other
light.
Two or three other women were in the room, catching their breath up
through their nostrils with little gasps, pressing folded handkerchiefs
against their trembling mouths, letting fresh tears well from their
tear-reddened eyes. Chris was standing a few feet away from the
white-clad, flower-circled, radiant sleeper who had been Alice; his arms
were folded, his splendid dark gaze fell upon her with a sort of sombre
calm; he seemed entirely unconscious of the pitying and sorrowful
friends who were moving noiselessly to and fro.
In the candlelight there was a wavering smile on Alice's quiet face, her
broad forehead was unruffled, and her mouth mysteriously sweet. Norma's
eyes fell upon a familiar black coat, on the kneeling woman nearest her,
and with a start she recognized Aunt Kate.
They left the room together a few minutes later, and Norma led her aunt
to her own room, where they talked tenderly of the dead. The older woman
was touched by the slender little black figure, and badly shaken by the
double tragedy, and she cried quite openly. Norma had Regina send her up
some tea, and petted and fussed about her in her little daughterly way.
"I saw about Miss Alice this morning, but I had no idea the poor old
lady----!" Mrs. Sheridan commented sadly. "Well, well, it seems only
yesterday that here, in this very house--and they were all young
then----" Aunt Kate fell silent, and mused for a moment, before adding
briskly: "But now, will they want you, Norma, after the funeral, I mean?
Wolf wrote me----"
"I don't think Aunt Annie wants me now," Norma said, and with a
heightened colour she added, suddenly, "But I belong here, now, Aunt
Kate--I know who I am at last!"
Mrs. Sheridan's face did not move; but an indefinable tightness came
about her mouth, and an indefinable sharpness to her eyes. She looked at
Norma without speaking.
"Aunt Marianna told me," the girl said, simply. "You're sorry," she
added, quickly, "I can see you are!"
"No--I wouldn't say that, Baby!" But Mrs. Sheridan spoke heavily, and
ended on a sigh. There was a short silence.
Then Regina came in with a note for Norma, who read it, and turned to
her aunt.
"It's Chris--he wants very much to see you before you go away," she
said. "I wonder if you would ask Mr. Liggett to come in here, Regina?"
But five minutes later, when Chris came in, he looked so ill that she
was quick to spare him. "Chris, wouldn't to-morrow do--you look so
tired!"
"I _am_ tired," Chris said, after quietly accepting Mrs. Sheridan's
murmured condolence, with his hand holding hers, as if he liked the big,
sympathetic woman. "But I want this off my mind before I see Judge Lee!
You are right, Mrs. Sheridan," he said, with a sort of boyish gruffness,
not yet releasing her hands, "my wife was an angel. I always knew
it--but I wish I could tell her so just once more!"
"Ah, that's the very hardest thing about death," Mrs. Sheridan said,
sitting down, and quite frankly wiping from her eyes the tears that
sympathy for his sorrow had made spring again. "We'd always want one
more hour!"
"But Norma perhaps has told you----?" Chris said, in a different tone.
"Told you of the--the remarkable talk we had yesterday--with my poor
mother-in-law----"
Kate Sheridan nodded gravely.
"Yes," she answered, almost reluctantly, "Norma is Theodore Melrose's
child. I have letters--all their letters. I knew her mother, that was
Louison Courtot, well. It was a mixed-up business--but you've got the
whole truth at last. I've lost more than one night's sleep over my share
of it, Mr. Liggett, thinking who this child was, and whether I had the
right to hold my tongue.
"I was a widow when I went to Germany with Mrs. Melrose. She begged and
begged me to, for she was sick with worry about Miss Annie. Miss Annie
had been over there about eight months, and something she'd written had
made her mother feel that she was ill, or in trouble. Well, I didn't
want to leave my own children, but she coaxed me so hard that I went. We
sailed without cabling, and went straight to Leipsic, and to the
dreadful, dreary pension that Miss Annie was in--a dismal, lonely place.
She came downstairs to see her mother, and I'll never forget the scream
she gave, for she'd had no warning, poor child, and Müller had taken all
her money, and she was--well, we could see how she was. She began
laughing and crying, and her mother did, too, but Mrs. Melrose stopped
after a few minutes, and we couldn't stop Miss Annie at all. She
shrieked and sobbed and strangled until we saw she was ill, and her
mother gave me one look, and bundled her right out to the carriage, and
off to a better place, and we got a doctor and a nurse. But all that
night she was in danger of her life. I went in to her room that evening,
to put things in order, and she was lying on the bed like a dead
thing--white, sick, and with her eyes never moving off her mother's
face. I could hear her murmuring the whole story, the shame and the
bitter cruelty of it, crying sometimes--and her mother crying, too.
"'And, Mama,' she said--the innocence of her! 'Mama, did the doctor tell
you that there might have been a baby?--I didn't know it myself until a
few weeks ago! And that's why they're so frightened about me now. But,'
she said, beginning to cry again, 'I should have hated it--I've always
hated it, and I'd rather have it all over--I don't want to have to face
anything more!'
"Well, it looked then as if she couldn't possibly live through the
night, and all her mother could think of was to comfort her. She told
her that they would go away and forget it all, and Miss Annie clung to
her through the whole terrible thing. We none of us got any sleep that
night, and I think it was at about three o'clock the next morning that I
crept to the door, and the doctor--Doctor Leslie--an old English doctor
who was very kind, came to the door and gave me the poor little pitiful
baby in a blanket. I almost screamed when I took it, for the poor little
soul was alive, working her little mouth! I took her to my room, and
indeed I baptized her myself--I named her Mary for my mother, and Leslie
for the doctor, but I never thought she'd need a name--then. She was
under four pounds, and with a little claw like a monkey's paw, and so
thin we didn't dare dress her--we thought she was three months too soon,
then, and I just sat watching her, waiting for her to die, and thinking
of my own----!
"Miss Annie was given up the next day, she'd gone into a brain fever,
but my poor little soul was wailing a good healthy wail--I remember I
cried bitterly when the doctor told me not to hope for her! But she
lived--and on the fourth day Mrs. Melrose sent us away, and we went and
stayed in the country for two months after that.
"Then I had a letter from the Riviera, the first that'd come. Miss Annie
was getting well, her hair was coming out curly, and she hardly
remembered anything about what had happened at all. She wasn't nineteen
then, poor child! She had cried once, her mother wrote, and had said she
thanked God the baby had died and that was all she ever said of it.
"I brought the baby home, and for nearly three years she lived with my
own, and of course Mrs. Melrose paid me for it. And then one day Louison
Courtot came to see me--I'd known her, of course--Mr. Theodore's wife,
that had been Miss Annie's maid. She had a letter from Mrs. Melrose, and
she took Leslie away, and gave her to her grandmother--just according to
plan. Well, I didn't like it--though it gave the child her rights, but
it didn't seem honest. I had no call to interfere, and a few months
later Mrs. Melrose gave me the double house in Brooklyn, that you'll
well remember, Norma--and your own father made out the deed of gift, Mr.
Chris----!
"And then, perhaps a year later, Louison came to call on me again, and
with her was a little girl--four years old, and I looked at her, and
looked at Louison, and I said, 'My God--that's a Melrose!' She said,
yes, it was Theodore's child."
"Norma!" Chris said.
"Norma--and I remember her as if it was yesterday! With a blue velvet
coat on her, and a white collar, and the way she dragged off her little
mittens to go over and play with Rose and Wolf--and the little coaxing
air she had! So then Louison told me the story, how she had never told
Mrs. Melrose that Theodore really had a daughter, because she hated her
so! But she was going to be married again, and go to Canada, and she
wanted me to keep the baby until she could send for her. I said I would
see how it went, but I could see then that there never was in the
world----" Mrs. Sheridan interrupted herself, coughed, and glanced at
the girl. "Well, we liked Norma right then and there!" she finished, a
little tamely.
"Oh, Aunt Kate!" Norma said, smiling through tears, her hand tight upon
the older woman's, "you never will praise me!"
"So Norma," the story went on, "had her supper that night between my two
children, and for fourteen years she never knew that she wasn't our own.
And perhaps she never would have known if Louison hadn't written me that
she was in a hospital--she was to have an operation, and she was willing
at last to make peace with her husband's family. In the same letter was
her husband's note that she was gone, so I had to use my own judgment
then. And when I heard Norma talk of the rich girls she saw in the
bookstore, Mr. Chris, and knew how she loved what money could do for
her, it seemed to me that at least I must tell her grandmother the
truth. So we came here, three years ago, and if it wasn't for Miss
Alice's mistake about her, perhaps the story would have come out then!
But that's all the truth."
Chris nodded, his arms folded on his chest, his tired face very
thoughtful.
"It makes her a rich woman, Mrs. Sheridan," he said.
"I suppose so, sir. I understand Mr. Melrose--the old gentleman--left
everything to his son, Theodore."
"But not only that," Chris said. "She can claim every penny that has
ever been paid over to Leslie, all through her minority, and since she
came of age, and she also inherits the larger part of her grandmother's
estate, under the will. Probably Mrs. Melrose would have changed that,
if she had lived when all this came to light, and given that same legacy
to Leslie, but we can't act on that supposition. The court will
probably feel that a very grave injustice has been done Norma, and exact
the full arrears."
"But, Chris," Norma said, quickly, "surely some way can be found to
_give_ Leslie all that would have come to me----"
"Well, that, of course, would be pure generosity on your part!" he said,
quietly. "However, it would seem to me desirable all round," he added,
"to keep this in the family."
"Oh, I think so!" Norma agreed, eagerly.
"Annie and Hendrick must be informed, and, as Leslie's mother, Annie
will provide for her some day, of course. We'll discuss all that later.
But to-day I only wanted to clear up a few points before I see Judge
Lee. He has the will, I believe. He will be here to-morrow morning. In
the meanwhile, I think I would say nothing, Norma, just because Annie is
so upset, and if Leslie heard any garbled story, before she got
here----"
"Oh, I agree with you entirely, Chris! Anything that makes it easier all
round!" Norma could afford to be magnanimous and agreeable. She would
not have been human not to feel herself the most interesting figure in
all this dramatic situation, not to know that thoughtfulness and
generosity were the most charming parts of her new rôle. Quietly,
affectionately, she went to the door with Aunt Kate.
"I wish I could go home with you!" she said. "But I think they need me
here! And if Wolf should come up Saturday, Aunt Kate, you'll tell him
about the funeral----"
"Rose said he wasn't coming up on Saturday," his mother said. "But if he
does, of course he'll understand! Remember, Norma," she added, drawing
the girl aside a moment, in the lower hall, "remember that they've all
been very kind to you, dear! It's going to be hard for them all!"
"Yes, I know!" Norma said, hastily, the admonition not to her taste.
"And what you and Wolf will do with all that money----!" her aunt mused,
shaking her head. "Well, one thing at a time! But I know," she finished,
fondly, "my girl will show them all what a generous and a lovely nature
she has, in all the changes and shifts!"
Clever Aunt Kate! Norma smiled to herself as she went upstairs. She had
hundreds of times before this guided the girl by premature confidence
and praise; she knew how Norma loved the approbation of those about her.
Not but what Norma meant to be everything that was broad and considerate
now; she had assumed that position from the beginning. Leslie's chagrin,
Aunt Annie's consternation, should be respected and humoured. They had
sometimes shown her the arrogant, the supercilious side of the Melrose
nature, in the years gone by. Now she, the truest Melrose of them all,
would show them real greatness of soul. She would talk it all over with
Wolf, of course----
She missed Wolf. It was, as always, a curiously unsatisfying atmosphere,
this of the old Melrose house. The whispers, the hushed footsteps, the
lowered voices, Aunt Annie's plaintive heroism in her superb crapes, the
almost belligerent loyalty of the intimate friends who praised and
marvelled at her, the costly flowers--thousands of dollars' worth of
them--the extra men helping Joseph to keep everything decorous and
beautiful--somehow it all sickened Norma, and she wished that Wolf
could come and take her for a walk, and talk to her about it. He would
be interested in it all, and he would laugh at her account of the
undertakers, and he would break into elementary socialism when the cost
of the whole pompous pageant was estimated.
And what would he think of her new-found wealth? Norma tried to imagine
it, but somehow she could not think of Wolf as very much affected. He
hated society, primarily, and he would never be idle, not for the
treasures of India. He would let her spend it as she pleased, and go on
working rapturously at his valves and meters and gauges, perhaps
delighted if she bought him the costliest motor-car made, or the finest
of mechanical piano-players, but quite as willing that the pearls about
his wife's throat should cost fifty dollars as fifty thousand, and quite
as anxious that the heiress of the Melroses should "make good" with his
associate workers as if she had been still a little clerk from Biretta's
Bookshop!
But cheerfully indifferent as he was to everything that made life worth
living to such a man as Christopher Liggett, she knew that he would not
go to California without her unless there was a definite break between
them. She knew she could not persuade him to leave her here, as a normal
and pleasant solution, just until everything was settled, and until they
could see a little further ahead. No, Wolf was annoyingly conventional
where his wife was concerned: her place was with him, unless for some
secondary reason they had decided to part. And she knew that if he let
her go it would be because he felt that he never should have claimed
her--that, in the highest sense, he never had had her at all.