OVER THE TELEPHONE
From the depths of her high-backed chair Mercy Lascelles stared at the
white door beyond which Joan had just vanished. Her gaunt figure was
no longer huddled over the fateful crystal she still clutched in her
two hands. Her brain was busy, and her eyes were hot and feverish.
She was not thinking of the girl. She was not even thinking of the
message traveling over the wire at that moment. That she knew. For her
it had no greater significance than that it was the corroboration
necessary to convince the girl who was receiving it--to convince her
of the truth of that which she had charged her with.
Her mind was far away, back in the dim years of her earlier womanhood.
Back amidst scenes of disaster through which she had long since
passed. All the old pain and suffering was at the surface again. Again
was she torn by the bitterness and injustice that had robbed her of
all that seemed good to her in life. Again through her mental picture
moved the figures of two men and one woman, the characters who went to
make up the cast of her wretched drama. Her feelings were once more
afire with hatred, hatred for one, and, for the others, a profound,
contemptuous bitterness.
But hatred was dominant. The memory of one of those men had always
power to drive her to the verge of madness. He was a handsome,
brown-haired man of powerful physique. A man whose gentle manner and
swift, hot temper she abhorred, and the memory of whose influence upon
her life had still power to grind to ashes every gentle feeling she
ever possessed.
It was of one of his terrible tempers she was thinking now. He had
displayed a fury she could never, would never forget. It was a memory
that tripped her even now at every turn, till it had become something
akin to an obsession.
Every detail of the scene was as clear cut in her mind as a hideous
cameo, every word he had uttered, the accusations, the insinuations he
had made. Even the room, with its simple furnishings, its neatness,
its air of care--her care--stood out sharply in her memory. She
remembered it all so well. She was in the midst of preparing Charles
Stanmore's supper, and Joan, only a couple of weeks old, was fast
asleep in an adjoining bedroom. He had chosen this time to call,
because he knew that she, Mercy, would be alone.
She remembered his handsome face clouded with sullen anger and
jealousy when she let him in at the door of the apartment. And then
his first words when he took up his position before the hard-coal
stove in the parlor--
"So you've pitched everything to the devil, and taken up your abode
with Charlie," he began, in tones of jealous fury. "And he--he is your
brother-in-law."
There was no mistaking his meaning. He intended that she should make
no mistake, for he added a laugh--a hateful laugh--to his words.
This was the man who had asked her to marry him almost numberless
times. This was the man whom she had refused time and again, making it
plain that, however hopelessly, her love was given to another. This
was the man who knew that she had come at her sister's death to care
for the little, new-born, motherless, baby girl, and help the man whom
she had always loved out of the hopeless dilemma in which he found
himself. This was the man who was the lifelong friend of Charles
Stanmore, whose mistress he was accusing her of having become.
She remembered the sudden anger which leapt to her brain. She
remembered, too, the thought which came in its midst, and formulated
her instant retort.
"Yes," she said coldly. "I have."
Then she saw the real man as she had now come to regard him. She
remembered the sudden blaze of his eyes, the ghastly pallor of his
face, the look of almost insane jealousy which he turned upon her. And
then came that never-to-be-forgotten insult, those words which had
seared themselves upon her woman's heart as though branded thereon
with red-hot irons.
"And you are the woman I have loved. Woman?" He laughed. "It's too
good for you. Do you know what we men call such creatures as you? All
this time you have waited--waited, and the moment your poor sister is
in her grave, almost before the blood in her veins is cold, you seize
your opportunity to fulfil your mad desire. Taking advantage of
Charlie's wretchedness and trouble, you force yourself upon him. You
force a position upon him from which there is no escape. The world
will accept the position at the value you intend, and he is powerless
to do anything but accept it too. You meant to have him, and I suppose
he is yours by now. And all this time I have wasted an honest love on
you--you----"
And she had answered him, calmly and deliberately, before he could
utter the filthy epithet she knew he intended.
"Please keep your voice down, or--or you'll wake little Joan."
Even now she could never quite understand her own attitude at the
moment. Something inside her was urging her to fly at his throat and
tear the foul words from it. Yet there was something gripping her,
something compelling her to a calmness she was powerless to resist.
Then, as swiftly as he had blazed into fury, had come a miraculous
change in the man. Perhaps it was the effect of her calm, perhaps it
was something in the man himself. Anyway the madness abruptly died out
of his eyes and left him shaking. He strove to speak, but no words
came. He passed his hand across his forehead as though to remove
something that was clouding his brain. He turned from her fixed stare
as though he could no longer support it. He moved across the room. He
hesitated. He turned to her. She did not see the movement, for her
back was now turned, but somehow she felt it.
Then she heard his footsteps again, and, finally, the rattle of the
door handle as he clutched it. After that came his voice. All the
anger, the jealousy, had gone out of it. It was low, gentle,
imploring. But she did not move.
"Mercy, Mercy! For--forgive me. I----"
"Never!"
Oh, the scorn, the hatred she had flung into the word!
The next she remembered was that he passed swiftly and silently from
the room. Then, then at last her woman's weakness, a weakness she now
so cordially despised, overcame her, and she fell into a chair and
wept.
But her weakness was short-lived. Her spirit rose in rebellion, and
her tears ceased to flow as the cruel iron entered her soul. She
pondered long and deeply, and presently she went on with her
preparations for Charles Stanmore's supper as though nothing unusual
had occurred.
Nor, when he came home, did she tell him, nor did she ever by word or
act permit the secret of that interview to pass out of her keeping.
But the memory of it was forever with her. Day and night she hugged it
to herself, she nursed it, and fostered it for all those twenty years,
the bitterness, the cruel injustice of the insult, grinding its way
till it became a part of the very essence of her being.
Suddenly a cry broke in upon her reverie. She started, and her eyes
lit with a gleam of satisfaction. Her mind had returned to the
present, and she called out--
"Joan!"
Without waiting for an answer she left her seat, and, crossing swiftly
to the door, flung it wide open.
Joan staggered in, and, dropping into the welcoming arms of a
rocking-chair, she buried her face in her hands.
Mercy Lascelles stood silently contemplating the bowed head. There was
no sympathy in her attitude. Her heart was cold and hard as steel. But
she was interested in the cause rather than the effect.
After a while the storm of grief slackened. The racking sobs came at
longer intervals. Then it was that Mercy Lascelles broke the silence.
"Well?" she demanded sharply.
The tear-stained face was slowly lifted, and the sight of the girl's
distress was heart-breaking.
"He is dead," Joan said in a choking voice. Then, with something like
resentment--"Are--are you satisfied?"
Mercy went back to her chair and her beloved crystal. And after a
moment she began to speak in a low, even tone, as though reciting a
well-learnt lesson.
"It was at the crossing of 36th Street and Lisson Avenue, here the
street cars cross, here some also turn off. It was the fault of his
horse. The creature shied at a heavy truck. Two cars were approaching
from east and west. The shying horse slipped on the granite paving,
fell, and was caught between the two meeting cars before they could
pull up. The horse was killed on the spot, and--the rider was----"
"Don't, auntie! Don't say it! Yes, yes, he was taken to the hospital,
and died of his injuries. But don't speak of his terrible mutilations.
I--I can't bear it."
Again Joan buried her face in her hands as though to shut out the
horror of it all. But the elder woman had no such scruples.
"Why harrow yourself with the picture?" she demanded brusquely.
"Imagination can add nothing to the fact. Tears will not change one
detail. They will only add to your distress. Dick Sorley left your
side to go to certain death. Nothing could have averted that. Such was
his fate--through you."