"S'got a name on it," Maggie volunteered. "Wright, I think it is.
'Tain't hers, unless she's picked it up somewhere. It's just come out of
the wash."
Maggie's eyes were snapping with suspicion. "There ain't any Wrights
around here, Miss Agnes," she said. "I sh'd say she's here under a false
name. Wright's likely hers."
In tracing the mystery of the confession, I find that three apparently
disconnected discoveries paved the way to its solution. Of these the
handkerchief came first.
I was inclined to think that in some manner the handkerchief I had found
in the book in the cellar had got into the wash. But it was where I had
placed it for safety, in the wall-closet in the library. I brought it
out and compared the two. They were unlike, save in the one regard. The
name "Wright" was clear enough on the one Maggie had found. With it as a
guide, the other name was easily seen to be the same. Moreover, both had
been marked by the same hand.
Yet, on Anne Bullard being shown the one Maggie had found, she
disclaimed it. "Don't you think some one dropped it at the funeral?" she
asked.
But I thought, as I turned away, that she took a step toward me. When I
stopped, however, and faced about, she was intent on something outside
the window.
And so it went. I got nowhere. And now, by way of complication, I felt
my sympathy for Anne's loneliness turning to genuine interest. She was
so stoical, so repressed, and so lonely. And she was tremendously
proud. Her pride was vaguely reminiscent of Miss Emily's. She bore her
ostracism almost fiercely, yet there were times when I felt her eyes on
me, singularly gentle and appealing. Yet she volunteered nothing about
herself.
I intended to finish the history of Bolivar County before I left. I
dislike not finishing a book. Besides, this one fascinated me--the smug
complacence and almost loud virtue of the author, his satisfaction in
Bolivar County, and his small hits at the world outside, his patronage
to those not of it. And always, when I began to read, I turned to the
inscription in Miss Emily's hand, the hand of the confession--and I
wondered if she had really believed it all.
So on this day I found the name Bullard in the book. It had belonged
to the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus's grandmother, and he distinctly stated
that she was the last of her line. He inferred, indeed, that since
the line was to end, it had chosen a fitting finish in his immediate
progenitor.
That night, at dinner, I said, "Anne, are there any Bullards in this
neighborhood now?"
"I have never heard of any. But I have not been here long."
"It is not a common name," I persisted.
But she received my statement in silence. She had, as I have said,
rather a gift for silence.
That afternoon I was wandering about the garden snipping faded roses
with Miss Emily's garden shears, when I saw Maggie coming swiftly
toward me. When she caught my eye, she beckoned to me. "Walk quiet,
Miss Agnes," she said, "and don't say I didn't warn you. She's in the
library."
So, feeling hatefully like a spy, I went quietly over the lawn toward
the library windows. They were long ones, to the floor, and at first I
made out nothing. Then I saw Anne. She was on her knees, following the
border of the carpet with fingers that examined it, inch by inch.
She turned, as if she felt our eyes on her, and saw us. I shall never
forget her face. She looked stricken. I turned away. There was something
in her eyes that made me think of Miss Emily, lying among her pillows
and waiting for me to say the thing she was dreading to hear.
I sent Maggie away with a gesture. There was something in her pursed
lips that threatened danger. For I felt then as if I had always known
it and only just realized I knew it, that somewhere in that room lay the
answer to all questions; lay Miss Emily's secret. And I did not wish to
learn it. It was better to go on wondering, to question and doubt and
decide and decide again. I was, I think, in a state of nervous terror by
that time, terror and apprehension.
While Miss Emily lived, I had hoped to help. But now it seemed too
hatefully like accusing when she could not defend herself. And there is
another element that I am bound to acknowledge. There was an element of
jealousy of Anne Bullard. Both of us had tried to help Miss Emily. She
had foiled my attempt in her own endeavor, a mistaken endeavor, I felt.
But there was now to be no blemish on my efforts. I would no longer pry
or question or watch. It was too late.
In a curious fashion, each of us wished, I think, to prove the quality
of her tenderness for the little old lady who was gone beyond all human
tenderness.
So that evening, after dinner, I faced Anne in the library.
"Why not let things be as they are, Anne?" I asked. "It can do no good.
Whatever it is, and I do not know, why not let things rest?"
"Some one may find it," she replied. "Some one who does not care, as
I--as we care."
"Are you sure there is something?"
"She told me, near the last. I only don't know just where it is."
"And if you find it?"
"It is a letter. I shall burn it without reading. Although," she drew a
long breath, "I know what it contains."
"If in any way it comes into my hands," I assured her, "I shall let you
know. And I shall not read it."
She looked thoughtful rather than grateful.
"I hardly know," she said. "I think she would want you to read it if
it came to you. It explains so much. And it was a part of her plan. You
know, of course, that she had a plan. It was a sort of arrangement"--she
hesitated--"it was a sort of pact she made with God, if you know what I
mean."
That night Maggie found the letter.
I had gone upstairs, and Anne was, I think, already asleep. I heard what
sounded like distant hammering, and I went to the door. Some one was
in the library below. The light was shining out into the hall, and
my discovery of that was followed almost immediately by the faint
splintering of wood. Rather outraged than alarmed, I went back for
my dressing-gown, and as I left the room, I confronted Maggie in the
hallway. She had an envelope in one hand, and a hatchet in the other.
"I found it," she said briefly.
She held it out, and I took it. On the outside, in Miss Emily's writing,
it said, "To whom it may concern." It was sealed.