ON Thursday, August 14th, at about half, past one in the afternoon,
Assistant-district-attorney Romer was seated in his office, poring over
a huge law-book’, and smoking a huge cigar, when the door suddenly
flew open, and in came, or more accurately, in burst Mr. Julian Hetzel.
In one hand Hetzel carried a dripping umbrella; the other hand was
thrust deep into the breast of its owner’s coat. Hetzel’s face wore
an expression of intense excitement.
Romer lifted his eyes from off his law-book, removed his cigar from
between his lips, and ejaculated, “Hello! What’s up now?”
Hetzel hurried straight ahead, till he had reached the edge of Romer’s
desk. Then, extracting a ponderous envelope from the inner pocket of
his coat, he threw it emphatically down upon Romer’s blotting pad, and
cried, “Read that—will you?—and tell me what you think of it.”
Romer picked the envelope up, looked inquiringly at its superscription,
inserted thumb, and forefinger, drew out its contents, unfolded the
same, turned to the beginning, scanned perhaps the first dozen lines,
stopped, ran the pages rapidly over to the end, found the signature,
then glanced up, and asked, “Are you in a hurry? Have you plenty of
time to spare? Because it’s a pretty serious undertaking—to read
this through.”
“Here—give it to me,” returned Hetzel. “I’ve been over it
once, and got familiar with the handwriting. I’ll read it to you.”
Hetzel read Ruth Ripley’s letter aloud to Romer. The reading consumed
rather more than an hour. Not once did Romer interrupt, or Hetzel pause.
At the end, the two men looked at each other in silence. By and by
Romer’s lips opened.
“By—by God!” was all he said.
Then he began to pace uneasily to and fro across the room.
“Well,” asked Hetzel, “do you think that that’s the sort of a
woman to be left locked up in the Tombs prison?”
“Heavens and earth!” cried Romer; and continued his promenade.
“But the question is,” said Hetzel, “whether she’s to be left
there in the Tombs. In view of what she has written down in those
papers, can’t we get her out? I want to take her home before nightfall
to-day. It seems to me, it’s an outrage upon humanity for her to
remain locked up an hour longer. You’re acquainted with the practical
side of this kind of thing. Now, give me your opinion.”
Romer knitted his brows, and kept on moving back and forth, up and down
the room, Gradually, pendulum-fashion, the space covered at each turn
shortened somewhat; until finally coming to a standstill, Romer said,
“Yes, by Jove! You’re right. She sha’n’. spend another night in
that place if I can help it; and I think I can.”
“Good and the less time lost, the better.”
“What I mean to do,” said Romer, “is this. I mean to take a pretty
big responsibility upon my shoulders, but I guess I’m safe in doing
so. I’m sure Mr. Orson would approve, if he were here; and as long
as he isn’t here, I’m going to act on that assumption, and run the
chances of getting his approval after the fact. The homicide that that
woman committed—why, it was a clear case of self-defense. And what
I’m going to take the responsibility of doing is this. I shall send
down to the Tombs and have her brought up here—to my office—without
a moment’s delay. While the officers are gone after her, I’ll run
into court and speak privately to the judge. I’ll lay these facts
before him, and tell him that we, the People, are convinced that it
was a plain case of justifiable homicide; and I’ll ask him to let her
withdraw her plea of guilty, and enter one of not guilty, right away. He
can’t refuse, if I put it on that ground. I’ll ask him, moreover,
as a personal favor to me, to have the court-room cleared of people, so
that she? won’t be obliged to face the music again to-day, as she was
yesterday. I can’t promise that he’ll agree to this; but it isn’t
at all impossible. Well and good. I’ll make these arrangements before
she arrives. When she does arrive, I’ll talk to her. You leave me to
do the talking. Then we’ll go with her into the judge’s presence,
and have her do what’s necessary there. And then, in your sight and in
hers, so that all doubt on that score will be cleared away for good
and all, I’ll nolle the indictment! That is to say, I’ll render the
indictment null and void by indorsing upon it a nol. pros., together
with a memorandum to the effect that the district-attorney is persuaded
of the defendant’s innocence. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Hetzel, “I think I understand. And if you can only
succeed in doing this, we—we’ll—” Hetzel’s voice broke. Before
he was able to recover it, Romer had left the room.
Half an hour, or thereabouts, elapsed. Hetzel waited as patiently as
he could—which is not saying much. Every five minutes, he had out his
watch. It was nearly half past three when at last Romer reappeared.
“Well?” Hetzel made haste to inquire.
“Well,” said Romer, “congratulate me! The judge agrees to do every
thing, just as I wished. At first he was disposed to hesitate. Then I
read him that part where she describes the application of the torture.
That finished him. They’re just winding up a larceny case at this
moment. He’s on the point of sentencing the prisoner. After that’s
over, he’ll have the court-room emptied, and be ready for us. She
ought to get here any minute now, and—” Romer paused; for, at this
moment, the door of his office opened, and Mrs. Ripley entered the room.
She halted just across the threshold, looked from Romer to Hetzel, bowed
slightly to the latter, and then stood still in passive attendance.
Romer advanced toward her, and said, very gently, “I beg of you, Mrs.
Ripley, to come in and sit down. I have something to say, and I
shall thank you very much if you will listen. Sit down here in this
easy-chair.—There.—Now, when you are ready, I’ll speak.”
“I am ready,” she said. Her voice was faint and weak. She leaned
back in her chair, as though feeble and exhausted. Her face was
intensely white—snow-white beneath its coronet of raven hair. There
were large, dark circles under her eyes.
“Mrs. Ripley,” began Romer—then hesitated—then began anew,
“Mrs. Ripley, I—that is, Mr. Hetzel—Mr. Hetzel has given me the
letter you wrote him yesterday, and I have read it. I dare not trust
myself to—to say what—to say any thing about it, more than this,
that we—the district-attorney’s office—that we are sorry, very,
very sorry for all that has happened—for all that you have been made
to suffer these last few days, and that—that we are anxious to do
every thing in our power to make amends. Of course I know we never
can make amends in full. I know that. We can’t undo what has been
done—can’t cure the pain that you’ve already had to bear.
But—but we can spare you—we can save you from having to suffer any
more pain, and—and then, you know, being ignorant of the real truth,
as we were, it wasn’t altogether our fault, was it? No; the original
fault lay with your lawyers, Short and Sondheim, when you were first
tried, years ago. They—they ought to have been strung and quartered,
because, if they had had you tell your story to the district-attorney
then, and if you had told it in its completeness, as you have in this
letter, why—why, nobody would have doubted your innocence for a
moment, and you would have been spared no end of trouble and sorrow and
mortification. But that’s neither here nor there. It’s too late to
complain of Short and Sondheim. They have an inborn antipathy to the
truth, and always fight as shy of it as they can. There’s no use
raking up bygones. The point is now that we want to set you at liberty
as quickly as possible. That’s the most we can do. We mean to nolle
the indictment against you—which will be as complete an exoneration as
an acquittal by a jury and an honorable discharge by a judge would
be. That’s what we intend to do. But first—before we can do
that—first, you know, you will have to untie our hands by withdrawing
the plea that you put in yesterday, and by entering in place of it a
plea of not guilty. Then you’ll be a free woman. Then you can go home
with Mr. Hetzel, here, and rest assured that you’ll never be troubled
any more about the matter.”
Ruth sat perfectly still in her chair. Her great, melancholy eyes were
fixed upon the wall in front of her. She made no answer.
“Now,” Romer said, after having waited in vain for her to speak,
“now, if you will be so good, I should like to have you come with me
into the court room, in order, you know, to do what I have said.”
At this, Ruth winced perceptibly. “Oh,” she said, very low,
“must—must I go into court again?”
“Oh, this time,” explained Romer, “it will not be as hard for you
as it was before. There’ll be, no spectators and no red tape. You’ll
tell the judge that you withdraw your plea of guilty, and plead not
guilty, and he’ll say all right; and then you’ll see me nolle the
indictment; and then it will all be over for good; and, as I’ve said,
you’ll go home with Mr. Hetzel.”
Ruth rose, bowed to Romer, and said, “I am ready to follow you.”
“Is there any objection to my accompanying you?” Hetzel asked.
“Oh, no; come along,” said Romer.
Every thing befell substantially as Romer had predicted. They found the
judge presiding over an empty court-room. His honor came down informally
from the bench, bade Mrs. Ripley be seated, said laughingly, “I’ll
act as clerk and judge both,” went to the clerk’s desk, possessed
himself of pen, ink, and paper, rattled off sotto voce, “You, Judith
Peixada, do hereby”—mumble, mumble, mumble—“and enter in lieu of
the same”—mumble, mumble—“upon the indictment;” threw down his
pen, got up, added in a loud, hearty voice, “That’s all, madam: good
day,” bowed, and left the room.
A few minutes later Ruth was seated at Hetzel’s side in a carriage;
and the carriage was making at top-speed for Beekman Place. After they
had driven for half a dozen blocks in silence, Hetzel began, “Mrs.
Ripley, I am sorry to disturb you. I suppose you are so tired that you
would rather not be talked to. But there is something which you must
hear before we reach home; and I must beg of you to give me permission
to say it now—at once.”
“Say any thing you wish. I will listen to any thing you wish to
say.” Her voice was that of a woman whose spirit has been quite broken
and subdued.
“Well, then, the upshot of what I have to say is just this.
Don’t for a moment imagine that I mean to reproach you. Under the
circumstances—considering the shock and the pain of your situation
last Monday—you weren’t to be blamed for jumping to a false
conclusion. But now, at last, you are in a position to see things as
they truly are. What I want to say is what Mrs. Hart wanted to say when
she visited you on Tuesday. It is that Arthur—that your husband—had
no more idea, when he put that advertisement into the papers, that you
were Judith Peixada, than I had, or than the most indifferent person in
the world had. When you fancy that he had been trying to find out your
secrets behind your back, you do him a—a tremendous injustice.
He never would be capable of such a thing. Arthur is the frankest,
honestest fellow that ever lived. He doesn’t know what deception
means. The amount of the matter was simply this. He had been retained
by Mr. Peixada to hunt up his brother’s widow. In order to accomplish
this, he resorted to a device which, I suppose, precedents seemed
to justify, though it strikes me as a pretty shabby one,
notwithstanding—he advertised. And when he went to meet Mrs. Peixada
in his client’s office, and found that she and you were one and the
same person, why, he was as much astonished as—as I was when he came
home and told me about it. There’s the long and short of the story in
a nutshell. The detail of it you’ll learn when you talk it over with
him.”
Hetzel waited, expecting Ruth to speak. But she did not speak for a long
while. She sat rigid in her corner, with pale face and downcast eyes.
At last, however, her lips opened. In a whisper, “Will—will he ever
forgive me?” she asked.
“Forgive you?” repeated Hetzel. “He doesn’t feel that he has
any thing to forgive you for. On the other hand, he hopes for your
forgiveness—hopes you will forgive him for having refused to let you
speak. It was a coincidence and a mistake. He loves you. When that is
said, every thing is said.”
For another long while Ruth kept silence. As the carriage turned into
Fiftieth Street, she straightened up, and drew a deep, tremulous breath.
After a brief moment of hesitation, she said, “I—I suppose he is
waiting for us—yes?”
“Well,” Hetzel answered, “that reminds me. You—you see, the fact
is—”
And thereupon the poor fellow had to break the news of Arthur’s
illness to her, as best he could. Beginning with that hour, the trained
nurse had an indefatigable companion in her vigils.
One morning Ruth said to Hetzel, “To-day is the day fixed for the
probate of Bernard Peixada’s will. Do you think it is necessary that I
should go to the court?”
“I don’t know,” replied Hetzel, “and I don’t care. You
sha’n’. do so. I’ll be your proxy.”
He went to the surrogate’s office. When he returned home, he said,
“Well, Mrs. Ripley, the enemy has had his Waterloo! The orphan
asylum and the home for working-girls will continue to enjoy Bernard
Peixada’s wealth.”
“Why, how is that?” Ruth questioned.
“The will fell through.”
“Fell through? Was it a forgery? Or what?”
“No, it wasn’t a forgery, but it was a holograph. That is to say,
the testator was rash enough to draw it himself—without the assistance
of a lawyer; and so he contrived to make a fatal blunder. It seems that
the law requires a person, upon signing his will, to explain explicitly
to the witnesses the nature of the document—that it is a will, and
not a deed, or a contract, or what not. And that is precisely what Mr.
Peixada fortunately omitted to do. The witnesses swore that he had said
nothing whatever concerning the character of the instrument—that he
had simply requested them to attest his signature, and then had folded
the paper up, and put it into his pocket. The lawyer—Arthur’s
successor—pressed them pretty hard, but they weren’t to be shaken;
and the clerk thereupon declared that the will was void and valueless;
and then there was a lot of excitement; and I came away; and that’s
how the case stands at present.”
“And so the money will remain where it is?”
“Precisely; though I should think the man to whom it once belonged
would turn in his grave, at the thought of the good it’s doing. This
is the sort of thing that helps one to believe in an avenging angel,
isn’t it?”
One Sunday afternoon, toward the middle of September, Ruth was very
happy. The crisis of Arthur’s illness, Dr. Letzup vouched, had passed.
His delirium had subsided. He had fallen into a placid slumber. With
proper care and vigilant guarding against a relapse, the doctor thought,
he ought to be upon his feet within a month.
So, it was natural that Ruth’s heart should sing.
But, especially when one is a songstress by birth and training, a
singing heart is apt to induce sympathetic action on the part of the
voice. Ruth was seated at the window in the room adjoining Arthur’s,
listening to her heart’s song, when, most likely without her being
conscious of it, a soft, sweet strain of melody began to flow from her
lips. It was very low and gentle, and yet, as the event proved, it was
loud enough to arouse the invalid from his much needed sleep. The nurse
came bustling in from the sick room, with finger raised in warning,
and exclaimed in a whisper, “Hush—hush—sh—sh! You’ve gone and
waked him up!”
Was it possible that she had so far forgotten herself? Oh, dear, dear!
Her regret bordered upon despair. Yet, with the impetuosity that is
characteristic of her sex, she could not stop there, and let bad enough
alone, but must needs be guilty of still further imprudence, and march
bodily into the sick man’s presence, and up close to his bedside.
He lay with open eyes looking straight ceiling-ward. But at the moment
of her entrance he turned his gaze full upon her, and a happy smile
lighted up his wan, wasted face. He did not attempt to speak. Neither
did she. But she bent over him, and kissed him once upon the forehead,
and rewarded his smile with a glance of infinite tenderness.
Then his lips moved. “Was—was it all a dream—my meeting you in
Peixada’s office, and all the rest?” he whispered.
“Yes—all a dream?” she answered.
He closed his eyes and went to sleep again. When Dr. Letzup called that
evening, “Better and better!” he cried. “What panacea have you
been administering during my absence?”
On Saturday, October 18th, the steamship Alcibiades, Captain Gialsamino,
of the Florio line, sailed from its berth in Brooklyn, and pointed its
prow towards Naples. Inscribed on the passenger-list were the names:
“M. and Mme. A. Ripli.” Monsieur and Madame Ripley were bent upon
wintering in Italy. They have remained abroad ever since. Arthur talks
in his letters of coming home next spring, though what he will do when
he gets here, I don’t know, for he has registered a solemn vow never
again to practice law. THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Mrs Peixada, by Henry Harland, AKA Sidney Luska