“THE EYES OF ELIZABETH”
At a famous hotel in a summer resort where people of wealth gathered, in
the bridal suite, pampered and indulged in every whim, Edith Moreland
was supposed to be recovering from her illness. She had been greatly
disturbed over the money matter. The more she thought of it, the more
frequently she said to Junior: “You know, as I have time to study about
it, I see that Mahala couldn’t possibly have taken that money, even
though she couldn’t account for its disappearance. You see, if I had
been calling there instead of being your wife, and if I had been
arrested, I couldn’t have proved that I didn’t take it.”
By unlimited and plausible lying, Junior managed to keep her reasonably
satisfied. He kept her room filled with flowers. He gave her expensive
pieces of jewellery. He spent the greater part of his time with her, but
she only grew more irritable and felt worse. Junior could see that she
really was ill and that, in spite of his best efforts, she was not
regaining her health. He began to fear that she was thinking of Mahala
and brooding over her when she was supposed to be talking and thinking
of other things.
Junior had been distinctly surprised at himself concerning Edith. In a
fit of angry disappointment at Mahala’s rejection and her scathing
arraignment of him, he had naturally turned to the girl, who all her
life had taken pains to let him see that she highly approved of him. His
one thought had been, that since he could not have Mahala it made no
difference whom he married. But in courting Mahala, the thought of
marriage had strongly entered his mind, and the night of Commencement
had shown him that Edith was a woman of distinctive beauty. He
worshipped beauty almost as deeply as he worshipped money. From the
books in the bank he had been able to gather a very agreeable estimate
of Edith’s fortune which was so considerable, that once convinced that
Mahala would never marry him, Junior proved the reckless trait in his
character by immediately marrying Edith.
She was quite as handsome as he had thought her. He was surprised to
find himself enjoying the demonstrations of affection that she lavished
upon him. He was willing to wait upon her. His father and mother were
consumed with wonder when they saw him fetching and carrying, but if
they protested, Junior merely laughed at them and went on doing
everything that Edith asked.
One evening, to escape the constant chattering of women on the upstairs
veranda, in whose talk Edith was not interested, she arose. She stepped
into her room, and picking up a Persian shawl, threw it over her
shoulders and walked the length of the veranda. At the corner of the
building she turned down a side porch and made her way past the windows
of the other guests, pausing occasionally to look down to the grounds
below.
Seeing that she appeared ill and pale, a woman sitting before the French
doors opening into her room, shoved a chair in Edith’s direction and
asked if she did not wish to sit down and rest for a few minutes.
“Thank you,” replied Edith, “you’re very kind. I have been ill, but I am
much better now.”
She glanced at the woman, and seeing that her dress and manner indicated
that she was not a babbling person who would tire her with senseless
chatter, she took the chair and sitting down, leaned against the balcony
railing and looked at the people moving through the grounds below. There
were wide stretches of beautifully kept lawns, every kind of tree and
shrub imaginable. There were fountains around which grew tropical water
plants and in which goldfishes swam lazily. It was the first minute of
quiet that Edith had experienced outside of her rooms. She enjoyed the
night air. She watched big, velvet-winged moths fluttering toward the
lights at the entrance to the grounds and to the building. A sense of
peace and rest stole through her. The torment of doubt and uncertainty
that had racked her ever since her marriage to Junior eased slightly.
She had cared for him so intensely that she found herself doing what he
asked without stopping to look into his reasons, but after a few weeks
of deliberation, she had reached the conclusion that while he was doing
his best to be nice to her, to keep her pleased and happy, he did not
love her and he never had. This had bred a bitterness in her heart
surpassing anything she ever before had experienced. Undoubtedly, it had
been the cause of her illness. Her one hope had been that in time Junior
would come to care for her as she knew he always had cared for Mahala.
When the real breakdown came, and the mystery of the lost pocket book
refused to be solved, Edith was tried to the breaking point. She could
not eat; she could not sleep; she could not keep from thinking, and
occasionally in her thoughts there would be thrust into her
consciousness ugly things that she always had heard said about the elder
Moreland and Junior.
Hour by hour, she kept reviewing her whole life in reference to her
relations with Mahala. With Junior she never had come in contact except
through Mahala. She remembered how she had stood with her programme
ready Commencement night and he had not even asked her for one dance as
he stood laughingly sprawling his name all over Mahala’s card. Even
Henrick Schlotzensmelter had known that it was proper for each boy of
the class to ask each girl for at least one dance. For a minute as she
descended from the omnibus, Edith had thought that at last Junior had
really seen her. His words had furnished her the spur that carried her
through her first public appearance triumphantly, when she had started
with every expectation that she would fail and be forced to resort to
her written speech.
She had her hour of hope, but Junior had seen to it that it was promptly
quenched; and then, in a short time, he had come to her urging the hasty
marriage to which she had consented because she preferred whatever life
might bring to her in his company to what it would bring without him.
To-night she was realizing more keenly than usual that it might be going
to bring her a very sorry scheme of things. Leaning upon the railing,
she forgot the woman sitting a few yards away, as she sat staring down
into the rapidly deepening shadows.
Then her eyes widened. Her breath caught in a gasp. One hand crept up to
her heart, as she leaned forward, peering down intently. She must be
mistaken, yet certainly a man passing through the shadows from the back
of the building, accompanied by one of the maids, was Junior. Gazing
earnestly to convince herself that she must be mistaken, she saw them
pause and look around them to assure themselves that no one was
watching. As the man turned, she saw for a certainty that he was Junior.
With her lips parted and her eyes incredulous, she sat an instant
watching him indulge in familiarities with the maid. She saw him give
her money. She saw him take her in his arms and kiss her.
Quite unconscious of what she was doing, possibly in order to make sure
of what was really happening, Edith arose, leaning far over the balcony.
As the maid started to go, Junior caught her back and kissed her
repeatedly. A terrible cry broke from Edith’s lips. The hand upon which
she was leaning, slipped. Head first she plunged over the railing and
down to the stone walk far below.
At the sound of her voice, Junior looked up. The next instant he saw her
plunging fall. He stopped a second, cautioning the maid to disappear. He
was the first to reach Edith. He gathered her in his arms and carried
her down the walk, offering the plausible explanation that in leaning
over the railing to speak to him as he was passing below, she had lost
her balance and fallen.
He carried her to their room and physicians were summoned, but it was
found that her neck was broken. So it was Junior’s task to take her back
to Ashwater, lay her away with every outward sign of mourning and lavish
expenditure, and ingratiate himself as deeply as possible with her
relatives by a clever semblance of heart-broken grief.
The morning after the funeral, Junior entered the president’s room of
the bank and closing the door behind him, went to the table and sat
down, facing his father.
“Dad,” he said, “you’ve looked so ghastly ever since I’ve been home that
I’ve come to put you out of your misery. Cheer up! Things are not as bad
as they might be. In the first place, you will be rejoiced to know that
I’ve got complete control of all of Edith’s finances. And in the second
place, if I don’t mistake my guess, for once you will be even more
rejoiced to know that what happened really and truly was an accident. I
was downstairs. Edith did lose her balance and fall. There was a woman
on the veranda with her near enough to see what happened and there were
people on the veranda below when she came smashing down. I got to her
first because I was coming that way and it wasn’t far. But it was an
accident pure and simple.”
Moreland Senior leaned back in his chair and breathed to the depth of
his lungs.
“Well, Junior,” he said. “I don’t know that I ever heard anything in all
my life with which I was better pleased. I may, or I may not, have a few
things I regret on my own soul, but I’d hate to undertake the strain of
carrying a burden like that concerning you. As a man grows older, he
doesn’t sleep so well as he did when he had the cast-iron constitution
of youth, and there are times when the night gets pretty bad if a man’s
conscience is not altogether clean. Of course, I’m not intimating that
I’ve got anybody’s blood on my hands, but in the wild, hot-headed days
of youth I may have done two or three things and been through a few
experiences that I’d hate to see measured out to you. I want you to have
a good time and get all you can out of my money—which is really your
money—but be slightly careful. See to it that you don’t get into
anything that’ll raise the hair on your head about three o’clock in the
morning twenty years from now.”
Junior laughed. “Sure!” he said. “Don’t worry, Governor, I’ll be
careful. I’ve never done anything so terrible and I’m not planning to do
anything except go on with the work I’d started before I went away. Has
anything come up concerning Mahala?”
Mr. Moreland shook his head.
“That’s one of the things, Junior,” he said, “that I’m not quite easy
about. It was a big sum to disappear and I was after the Spellmans and I
didn’t hesitate to give it to them as hard as I could, but to tell you
the plain truth, I haven’t an idea where that money went. I don’t know
how it got out of the house, or whether it was out of the house. Are you
sure you put that pocket book on the table when Edith told you to?”
“I certainly am,” said Junior. “I went into the room, laid it beside her
coat, and stepped back. You’ll remember that Mahala testified that it
was there when she finished Edith’s hat and laid it with the things she
was going to wear.”
Mr. Moreland slowly nodded his head.
“I remember,” he said. “That piece of testimony of hers is about the
only alleviation I’ve got when Elizabeth Spellman looks at me too hard,
at three in the morning. Sometimes I’m tempted to send to Chicago for a
real detective and put him on the case. I find that there are things
that I can do with impunity, and then there are some that I can’t. I’d
rather see Mahala Spellman freed from that ugly charge against her than
anything that could happen on earth right now. It’s beginning to react
against us, pretty strongly, my boy.”
“In the present circumstances,” said Junior, “so would I. But money is a
material thing. The earth doesn’t open and swallow it up. It’s
somewhere, and I cautioned you before I left to do the most thorough
piece of searching of Mahala Spellman’s _home_ that could possibly be
done. _I was sure you’d find the money there._ I don’t see yet how it
happens that you didn’t.”
Mr. Moreland drew another deep breath. He picked up a letter in one hand
and a letter opener in the other. Junior suddenly realized that his face
was drawn and haggard and that the eyes that were lifted to him had a
hunted look.
“Well, it happens, no doubt, because it wasn’t there,” he said. “If it
had been I’d have found it. I’ve worn myself out searching our house and
when I haven’t been at the job, your mother has. This thing has hurt her
a great deal worse than it has either one of us. I strongly suspect,
that among the old hens of this town, she’s likely getting hers. Since
people have had time to think things over, I get a hint once in a while
that the thing I cautioned you would happen is slowly happening. As
people have time to calm down and to study things, there’s a kind of
sentiment growing that Mahala never could have taken that money. After
all, she didn’t really need it. Jemima had furnished her shelter; she
was honestly earning her daily bread, while that damned Rich dug up a
forty-acre piece of land that doesn’t need anything but cultivation to
make it as fine river bottom as you ever laid your eyes on. She knew
about it before this thing happened. She wasn’t what you might call
destitute or in extremes, and she had a kind of pride that made her meet
the thing in a way that her mother couldn’t have done. I’ve got a notion
in my head that Elizabeth Spellman would have been prouder of her girl
if she’d laid down beside her and died with her, instead of putting on
an apron and beginning to sew for a living.”
Junior arose and stood looking at his father.
“No doubt you’re right, Dad,” he said quietly. “You most generally are.
But since you didn’t have anything to do with this, since you are in no
way to blame for it, don’t you think you’d better stop worrying about
it? Let it go for what it’s worth.”
“Well,” said Mr. Moreland, “my dear friends and my devoted neighbours
are beginning to make me feel that I’m none too popular in this
community. That little ape of a Spellman, feeling and flecking and
scraping, could make himself a commanding and respected figure, and I
thought I’d done it, but I’m none too sure that I have. I’m none too
sure that it wouldn’t take only one more little slip on my part to have
every dog in the county worrying at my throat. I understand that Albert
Rich, Peter Potter, and Jason Peters, are pooling issues against us.
They’re doing everything in their power to find some hook or crook by
which they can clear Mahala, and if the thing happens, and happens to
our discredit——” The Senior Moreland paused and drew fine lines down the
side of a blotter with a sharp pencil.
Junior stood waiting, studying him intently. At last the elder Moreland
resumed: “If the thing happens, and happens to our _discredit_, I’m not
any too sure that things won’t go pretty rough with us.”
Junior laughed outright, but it wasn’t a hearty laugh, and not a
mirthful one.
“Don’t you think it!” he cried. “Don’t you think it!”
Martin Moreland drew a line so deep that it cut through the blotter. “I
don’t think it,” he said with a terse, cold incision that arrested
Junior’s deepest attention. “I don’t think it. _I know it._”
Junior stiffened slightly and stood studying him.
“There’s just one thing that can save the situation,” said the elder
Moreland. “If you’re ready to go to work, go to work now on the task of
finding out where that pocket book went. Find it in such a way that it
will be a credit to _us_ to have found it. Find it in such a way that it
will turn public opinion in our favour. Give me the chance to be the
leader in doing anything that could be done to reinstate Mahala.”
As he finished, Junior laughed again, this time more naturally. “That’s
something of a job that you’ve set for me, Pater,” he said. “I haven’t
an idea in ten states where that pocket book is, but if that’s the way
you feel about it, I’ll get on the job and see if I can resurrect it, or
duplicate it, or do something. And in the meantime, is there anything
you want me to do in connection with putting a small slice of the fear
of God into the hearts of Albert Rich, and old Potter and Jason?”
The Senior Moreland thought intently a few minutes and then he said
quietly: “Right there you had better stay your hand. They happen to be
on the popular side right now. You had better just drop that and evade
it, and get around it the best you can, and in the meantime, you had
better spend some time and money on seeing how popular you can make
yourself in this town right now.”
“All right,” said Junior, “at least one of the jobs you’ve set me is
agreeable. I don’t mind in the least seeing how popular I can make
myself. As a matter of fact, I deeply enjoy it, and in about ten days
I’ll show you an altogether different atmosphere. It’s evident to my
young mind that this village has needed me, that I’m of importance on
this job, and in the meantime, I think you had better take Mother and go
on a vacation. If you’ll allow me to say so confidentially, you’re
looking as if a keen blast of the wrath of Heaven had struck you.”
Junior left the room. Martin Moreland went on decorating the blotter. No
one kept any account of the length of time he spent or the intricacy of
the designs that he drew. He heard the whistles blowing for noon before
he arose and reached for his hat, and as he left the room he was saying
softly to himself: “‘The wrath of Heaven.’ I wonder what the wrath of
Heaven can do to me?”