THE PARIAH
Joan suddenly threw up her head. There was resentment in the violet
depths of her eyes, and her whole expression had hardened. It was as
though something of her youth, her softness, had passed from her.
"You must tell me, auntie," she demanded in a tone as cold as the
other's. "I--I don't understand. But I mean to. You accuse me with the
responsibility of--this. Of responsibility for all that has happened
to those others. You tell me I am cursed. It is all too much--or too
little. Now I demand to know that which you know--all that there is to
know. It is my right. I never knew my father or mother, and you have
told me little enough of them. Well, I insist that you shall tell me
the right by which you dare to say such things to me. I know you are
cruel, that you have no sympathy for any one but--yourself. I know
that you grudge the world every moment of happiness that life
contains. Well, all this I try to account for by crediting you with
having passed through troubles of which I have no knowledge. But it
does not give you the right to charge me with the things you do. You
shall tell me now the reason of your accusations, or I will leave this
home forever, and will never, of my own free will, set eyes on you
again."
Mercy's thin lips parted into a half-smile.
"And I intend that you shall know these things," she replied promptly.
"You shall know them from my lips. Nor has any one more right to the
telling than I." The smile died abruptly, leaving her burning eyes
shining in an icy setting. "I am cruel, eh?" she went on intensely.
"Cruel because I have refused to bend beneath the injustice of my
fellows and the persecutions of Fate. Cruel because I meet the world
in the spirit in which it has received me. Why should I have sympathy?
The world has robbed me of the only happiness I ever desired. What
obligation, then, is mine? You are right. I have no sympathy for any
living creature--none!"
Joan offered no comment. She was waiting--waiting for the explanation
she had demanded. She was no longer the young girl just returned
flushed with the healthy glow of her morning ride. Life had taken on a
fresh tone for her since then. It seemed as if years had suddenly
passed over her head and carried her into the middle of life.
"You shall have your explanation," Mercy went on after a moment's
pause. "I will give it you from the beginning. I will show you how it
comes that you are a pariah, shedding disaster upon all men who come
under your influence."
"A pariah!"
Joan's eyes suddenly lit with horror at the loathsome epithet.
"Yes. Pariah!" There was no mistaking the satisfaction which the use
of the word seemed to give the other woman. In her eyes was a
challenge which defied all protest.
As Joan had no further comment she went on--
"But they were all blind--blind to the curse under which you were
born--under which you live. You shall have your wish. You shall know
the right which I have for charging these things at your door. And the
knowledge of it will forever shatter the last castle of your
day-dreams."
Something of awe took hold of the listening girl. Something of terror,
too. What was the mystery into which she was blindly delving? Knowing
her aunt as she did, she felt, by her manner, that her words were the
prelude to disclosures that meant disaster to herself. And as the
other proceeded her half-frightened eyes watched her, fascinated by
the deliberateness of manner and the passionate sincerity underlying
every word of the story she told.
"Listen," she said, checking her voice to a low, even monotone. "You
are the child of disaster if ever woman was. Your father was a poor,
weak fool, a big, handsome, good-hearted fool whom Nature had endowed
with nothing more than a perfect exterior. He was a Wall Street man,
of a sort. One of those gamblers who live on the fringe of the big
financial circles, and most of whom gather their livelihood from the
crumbs falling from the rich man's table, but are ready to steal them
when the fall is not sufficient to fill their hungry mouths. For three
years he and I were engaged to be married."
She paused, and her hot eyes dropped to the crystal in her lap. Then
she went on, with harsh sarcasm breaking the level of her tone--
"For three years we waited for the coming of that trifling luck which
would enable us to marry. For three years I worked silently, joyfully,
to fill the wonderful bottom drawer which never failed to inspire me
with courage and hope. You see I--loved your father."
Again she paused, and Joan forgot something of her own trouble as she
noted the evident pain these memories gave to her aunt.
"The luck came. It was small enough. But with the little money I had
it was just sufficient. The license was procured. The wedding was
fixed. And I--well, God was good, the world was good, and life was a
joy beyond all dreams. You see I, too, was young then. My only
relative was a younger sister. She was a beautiful girl with red-gold
hair. And she was in business in California. I sent for her to come to
the wedding."
Joan gave a tense sigh. She knew what was to follow. The red-gold hair
told its own story. Mercy Lascelles raised a pair of stony eyes, and
her thin lips were smiling.
"I can see you understand," she said, without emotion. "Yes, she came,
and she stole your father from me. Oh, yes! she was handsome enough to
steal any man. She was even more beautiful than you are. It was just
before we were to be married. Less than a week. A good time to steal
him from me--after three years of waiting." She laughed bitterly. "She
stole him, and I--I cursed her. Oh, I didn't cry out! I simply cursed
her, I cursed her offspring, and burned every garment I had made or
bought for the wedding in my parlor stove. I sat by and watched the
fire as it hungrily devoured each record of my foolish day-dreams. And
as each one vanished in cinder and smoke I cursed her from the very
bottom of my heart."
The woman laughed again, and Joan could not repress a shudder at the
sound.
"Twelve months she had of him. And during those twelve months both he
and she nearly drove me mad in their efforts to make me marry your
father's great friend and fellow gambler. His name doesn't matter. He
was a brown-haired creature, who was, if possible, a greater gambler
than your father. But unlike your father his luck was phenomenal. He
grew rich whilst Charles Stanmore, with every passing week, grew
poorer. And for twelve long months he persecuted me with his
attentions. He never left me alone. I sometimes think he was crazy in
his desire to marry me. He knew the whole of my wretched story, yet it
made no difference. He swore to me in his mildly deliberate way that I
should marry him. Perhaps I ought to have read the real character of
the man underlying his gentle manner, but, poor fool that I was, I
didn't. It was left to later events to open my eyes, events which were
to teach me that under the guise of friendship he hated Charles
Stanmore, because--because, in spite of everything, I still loved him.
"At the end of those twelve months my cup of bitterness was filled to
overflowing. You were born. You, with your deep-blue eyes and red-gold
hair. You, Charles Stanmore's child--but not mine."
Her voice died out, and Joan understood something of the passion in
this strange woman's soul. But the next moment a hard laugh jarred her
nerves. It was a laugh that had no mirth. Only was it an audible
expression designed to disguise real feelings.
"Oh, I had no grudge against you. You--you with your crumpled face and
big blue eyes. You could make no difference to my life as I saw it.
And yet you did." The woman's fingers suddenly clutched the crystal in
her lap with a force that left the thin tips of them white and
bloodless. "You did. A difference that in my maddest dreams I could
never have hoped for. You brought with you the curse of disaster from
which there was no escape for those to whom you belonged.
"I can see it all now," she went on exultingly. "I can see it as I saw
it then, every detail of it. Your father's gambling had brought him
down to something like want. A week before you were born his home was
sold up, and he and your mother took shelter in a tiny three-roomed
apartment for which they had no money to pay the rent. In desperation
he came to _me_--to _me_ for help. And I gave it him. The day before
you were born I gave him the money for the expenses of your birth and
to tide him over for three months. It was almost all I had in the
world." Again came that mirthless laugh. Then she hurried on. "But the
temptation was too much for Charles Stanmore, gambler that he was. He
suddenly found himself with money in his pocket and hope in his
foolish soul. There was a big wheat operation going on at the moment,
and every penny of the money, along with all the credit he could
procure, he plunged into it."
"And lost it all?" Joan whispered.
The other shook her head.
"No. The influence of your strange fate was at work. On the day that
you saw light Charles Stanmore was a comparatively rich man. And your
mother--was dead."
Joan breathed a deep sigh.
"Yes, wheat went up by leaps and bounds, and your father was delirious
with joy. He stood over you--I can see him now--and talked at you in
his foolish, extravagant way. 'You're the brightest, happiest,
luckiest little hoodlam that ever came into the world,' he cried. 'And
your name is "Golden," my little Golden Woman, for if ever there was
a golden kiddie in the world you are she. Gold? Why, you've showered
it on me. Luck? Why, I verily believe if you'd been around you'd
have brought luck to Jonah when he got mixed up with the whale's
internals.' And then, just as he finished, the bolt fell. The doctor
came in from the next room and took him aside. Your mother was dead."
A sob broke from the listening girl, a great sob of sympathy for the
kindly, weak, irresponsible father she had never known.
"Your father's disaster looked like my blessing. I had no regrets for
the woman," Mercy went on. "He was mine now by every right. The thief
had come by her reckoning. So I seized the opportunity that was thrust
in my way. Mine was the right to care for him and help him in his
trouble, nor have I shame in saying that I took it.
"But the curse of your life was working full and sure. But for your
existence I should never have taken that step. But for that step other
matters would never have occurred. When your father's--friend
discovered what I had done his fury knew no bounds. His insults were
unforgettable--at least by me. But I persisted. For a great hope was
at work within me that now your mother was gone eventually Charles
Stanmore might come back to his allegiance, and I might step into her
place. It was a foolish hope, but--I loved your father.
"Bah!" she went on impatiently. "It is no use raking amongst those
ashes. The details don't matter to you. Those things are dead. And
only is their effect alive to-day. My hopes were never to be
fulfilled. How should they be with the curse of your father's golden
girl involving us all in disaster. Let me cut the wretched history as
short as I can. At first money was plentiful enough, and luck in that
direction seemed to border on the marvelous. To give you an instance
your father--imbecile that he was--swore he would test it in your own
interests. He hunted round till he found the most hair-brained,
wildcat company ever floated for the purpose of robbing moneyed fools,
and invested ten thousand dollars in it as a life-dowry for you. It
was the joke of all his gambling friends. It was like pitching dollar
bills into the Hudson. And then in a month the miraculous happened.
After a struggle the company boomed, and you were left with a
competence for life. Yes, at first money was plentiful enough, but
your father never got over his shock of your mother's death. Sometimes
I used to think his brain was weakening. Anyway, he plunged into a
wild vortex of gambling. He drank heavily, and indulged himself in
excesses from which he had always kept clear up to that time. He took
to cards in a manner that frightened even me, used as I was to his
weaknesses. And in all these things his friend encouraged and indulged
him.
"The end was not far off. How could it be? Your father's luck waned
and his debauches increased. He grew nervous and worried. But he
persisted in his mode of life. Then, in a little while, I knew that he
was borrowing. He never touched your money. But he was borrowing
heavily. This man whom I had come to regard as his evil genius
undoubtedly lent him money--much money. Then came a particularly bad
time. For two days Charles Stanmore went about like a madman. What the
trouble was I never knew--except that it was a question of money. And
this terminated in the night of disaster toward which everything had
been driving."
Mercy Lascelles' voice dropped to a low, ominous pitch, and she paused
as though to draw all the threads of memory into one firm grasp. Her
look, too, changed. But it was a change quite unnoticed by Joan.
"It was one night in the apartment. I had gone to bed. They, your
father and his--friend, were in the parlor. They had quarreled during
the evening over some money affairs which I did not understand. Your
father was headstrong, as he always was, and the other, well, he
rarely raised his voice--he was one of those quiet men who disguise
their purposes under a calm atmosphere--as a rule. However, on this
occasion high words had passed, and I knew that stormy feelings were
underlying the calm which finally ensued. At last, when they sat down
to a heavy game of baccarat, I crept away to bed.
"I don't know how long I had been in bed when it happened. I know I
was asleep, for I wakened suddenly with a great sense of shock, and
sat up trying to realize what had happened. It took me some moments. I
know my mind ran over a dozen things before I decided what to do. I
remembered that we were alone in the place. The servants had been
dismissed more than a week before. There was only you, and your
father, and me in the place. Then I remembered that his friend was
there, and I had left them playing cards. Instantly I got out of bed.
I slipped on a dressing-gown and crept out into the passage. I moved
silently toward the door of the sitting-room. It was wide open. I had
left it shut. The gas was full on. I reached the door and cautiously
peered in. But there was no need for caution. Your father had fallen
forward in his chair, and lay with his head, face downward, upon the
table. He was dead and--the other had gone. I ran to the dead man's
side and raised him up. It was too late. All--all I had or cared for
in the world had been taken from me by the hand of the murderer."
"Murdered?" Joan whispered in horrified tones.
"Yes, murdered!" came the swift, vehement retort. "Shot--shot through
the heart, and in the stomach--and his murderer had fled. Oh, God,
shall I ever forget that moment!"
The woman fell back in her chair, her whole withered body shaking with
emotion. Then with an effort she pulled herself together and went on
more calmly--
"I hardly know what I did. All I remember is that I gave the alarm,
and presently had the police there. I told them all I could, and gave
the name and description of--the man who had done the deed. But it was
useless. He had gone--bolted. Nor was he ever seen or heard of again.
The curse had worked out. You, your father's golden girl, were left
orphaned to the care of the woman to whom your very existence was an
ineradicable wrong, and who, through your coming, had been robbed of
all that made life possible."
She raised her crystal and held it poised on the gathered finger-tips
of one hand. And when she spoke again her voice had gained strength
and tone.
"Since those days I have learnt to read the words that are written by
the hand of Fate. And here--here is the open book. It is all here. The
storm of disaster that brought you into the world will dog your
footsteps. You are cursed with the luck that leads to disaster.
Wherever you go men will bless your name, and, almost in the same
breath, their blessings shall turn to the direst curses. It is not I
who am speaking. My tongue utters the words, but the writing of Fate
has been set forth for me to interpret. Wherever you go, wherever you
be, you cannot escape the destiny set out for you. I tell you you are
a leper, a pariah, whom all men, for their own safeguarding, must
shun."
All through the final pronouncement Joan sat transfixed with horror. A
leper! A pariah! Nor, in the light of those things which to her own
knowledge had happened, could she doubt the hideous denunciation. She
had heard and understood that ill-luck could and did pursue its
victims. But this! Oh, it was too terrible--too cruel! For an instant
she thought of the doctor and his words of warning. But one glance at
the bowed figure, again intent upon her crystal, and the thought
passed. The story she had listened to was too real, too full of those
things which had driven her poor aunt to her present unyielding
attitude toward the world to be the ravings of an insane mind. And
suddenly panic gripped her, that panic which, in a moment of weakness,
so easily tends toward self-destruction.
"Is--is there no hope, auntie?" she asked helplessly.
Mercy Lascelles looked up from the crystal. She eyed her niece
steadily, as though to read all there was hidden behind the desperate
blue eyes.
Slowly she shook her head.
Again came that spasm of panic, and Joan seemed to hurl her whole
young strength into denial.
"But there is. There must be," she cried, with a fierceness that held
the other in something like astonishment. "There must be," she
reiterated desperately. "No God could be so cruel--so--so wicked.
What have I done to deserve this? The injustice is demoniacal. Far
better go and throw myself before a passing train than live to carry
such a pestilence with me wherever I go through life. If you can read
these things--read on. Read on and tell me, for I swear that I will
not live with this curse forever tied about my neck."
"You will live--you must live. It is written here." Mercy pointed at
the crystal. Then she laughed her cold, mirthless laugh. "There was
one power that served me, that helped me to save my reason through all
those early days. God knows how it may help you--for I can't see. I
loved your father with a passion nothing, no disaster could destroy. I
loved him so that I could crush every other feeling down, subservient
to my passion. Go you, child, and find such a love. Go you and find a
love so strong that no disaster can kill it. And maybe life may still
have some compensations for you, maybe it will lift the curse from
your suffering shoulders. It--it is the only thing in the world that
is stronger than disaster. It is the only thing in the world that is
stronger than--death."
Joan had no answer. She stared straight ahead of her, focusing some
trifling detail of the pattern on the wall paper. Her face was
stony--stony as the face of the woman who was watching her. The
moments passed rapidly. A minute passed, and neither spoke.
Then at last the girl abruptly rose from her seat. Almost mechanically
she moved over to a mirror, and, removing her hat, deftly patted her
beautiful hair till it assumed its wonted appearance. And quite
suddenly she turned about.
"I have nearly fifty thousand dollars, auntie. I am going to realize
that capital. I am going to leave this house--I am going to leave it
forever. I shall change my name, and cover up my tracks, for I intend
going where I am not known. I am going where men cannot figure in my
life, which I intend to begin all over again. The burden Fate has
imposed upon me is too great. I am going to run from it."
She laughed. And her laugh was as mirthless as her aunt's had been.