Chapter I: Miss Charlotte Waits in the Hall

Somewhat more than a score of years before the opening of this story, Richard Fairchild, after quietly contemplating the parcelling of his once fair estate among a horde of clamoring, quarrelling creditors, chief of whom was his erstwhile overseer, William Slade, the elder,--strolled leisurely into the country, as quietly placed a pistol to his head and blew out his brains. He did not leave behind property of sufficient value to defray his modest burial expenses.

This succession of disasters at one stroke transformed the wife from a famous and envied beauty into a broken invalid, petulant, querulous, and exacting, living only in the memory of her days of happiness, and made of her daughter Charlotte a strangely quiet and sedate woman, bound to her helpless mother's side as with hoops of steel. Clay was then but a babe.

The tiny cottage that received the invalid mother, the dark-eyed daughter, and the infant son was part of a slender legacy bequeathed Charlotte by a maiden aunt; and with the passing years the old homestead became merely a melancholy ruin, half hidden by weeds and underbrush, infested by owls and bats, and an occasion for wonder at the probable motives which prompted the present Slade so to neglect it. Nothing stirred now beneath the crumbling roof-tree but rats and mice--and shadows.

If those persons who marvelled at Slade's parsimony or queer ideas of economy could have been present at a scene which occurred at the cottage on the evening of the night General Westbrook was assassinated, they might have found an answer to their mental queries. Yet we may only know what Miss Charlotte herself saw and heard.

To begin with, she was startled by a sound of unfamiliar footsteps on the front porch, an uncertain movement toward the door, and finally by a knocking upon the door itself.

She took up a lamp and advanced down the narrow hall to the small reception-hall. Without any hesitation she unlocked the door and opened it wide at once; and it is probable that no apparition of any person, dead or living, could have affected her so profoundly as what she then beheld in the light of the lamp. She was so astonished at sight of the crusty abstracter that she stood quite speechless. On the other hand, it is noteworthy in estimating Mr. Slade's character that he snatched off his hat and ducked his head, much as he might have done in the old days when he stepped aside from the road to allow the family coach to roll by. Plainly, he was uneasy, out of his element, and the shallow, jet-like eyes at once became shifty before the unfathomable ones which regarded him with such frank surprise and displeasure.

But her expression rapidly altered: her eyes darkened, their light hardened--if the expression is permissible--and her lips compressed; never before had a Slade stood in the doorway of the cottage. The brightly glowing flame of hospitality was extinguished before this unexpected blast.

This silence was something more than Slade could endure. Nervously, he emitted a dry, deprecatory cough behind his knuckly fingers.

"Miss Charlotte, is it not?" he finally ventured.

"What do you want?" was the blunt reply.

Propitiation was difficult for Slade, especially in the face of such obvious, uncompromising antipathy. His nervousness measurably increased, and he replied, rather incoherently

"Pardon me, Miss Charlotte, I know it seems strange--why I am here, I mean; but I must see--dear me, I can't explain.... Can't you hold the light a little more out of my eyes? Oh, very well.... Your mother--Mrs. Fairchild--I must see her on business--very important, Miss Charlotte."

Her amazement only deepened.

"Business with mamma!" she cried, incredulously. "Why, that is ridiculous--absurd; mamma has transacted no business for years. What in the world do you mean?"

He seemed to be painfully aware of his awkward, ungainly, and untidy appearance, and of the harshness of his voice; he was overcome by a sense that this woman, who looked him through and through as if he were transparent, would regard any misfortune that might befall him with precisely the same expression. He made a strenuous effort at composure, with the result that his naturally sour and churlish disposition was given an opportunity to assert itself.

"My business goes behind those years," he said; "and if you please, it is none of yours."

"Indeed?" The rising inflection soared to glacial heights. "If you will excuse me I will close the door. When my brother returns--"

A sudden look of cunning in the little jet eyes checked her.

"Hear me a moment," he presently said. "My errand affects--" He paused briefly and looked at her with a slightly different expression, as if determining how far to trust her; but he uttered no confidence. "Come, Miss," he at last finished, "if you don't admit me you--your mother--your brother--your brother, eh?--will suffer for it."

Still inflexibly barring the entrance: "Do you mean that your errand concerns Clay?" she asked. Unconsciously, a note of anxiety had crept into her voice, which, in spite of his deafness, Slade caught, and he was quick to take advantage of it.

Doubtfully, still a little bewildered, but her hostility for this man not in the least abated, she stepped aside at last, and coldly bade him to enter. She placed the lamp upon a table in the tiny hall. "Wait here," she enjoined, briefly, without offering him a seat, and so left him.

Charlotte Fairchild was one of those very tall women, with whom we rarely meet, who are not awkward. Instead, when she walked every movement seemed to flow in graceful ripples from feet to shoulders, beginning without abruptness and dying gradually away like the wavelets on the surface of a disturbed pond. A couplet of Herrick's pictures her:

"Then, then (methinks), how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes."

And yet her step was firm and swift, giving her a bearing exquisitely impressive.

Her hands and feet were beautifully formed, long, slender, and tapering, as becomes a tall woman; and her voice was one of those rich, liquid contraltos, always effective because always subdued. It was in accord with her habitual repose; but it hinted at unlimited possibilities of elemental strength, and the presence of many and varied forces behind her calm exterior.

Her command to Mr. Slade was imperative, and he stood uncertainly watching her as she walked down the hall. At its end she opened a door, and even the man's faulty hearing could catch the high, impatient voice in the room beyond; a voice which had an odd effect upon him, too, for the lean, irascible visage actually brightened, and a light very like eagerness shot from the jetty eyes.

"Child, who was it?" the voice was saying. "What kept you so long? Is there any news of--" And the door closed again.

Mr. Slade was obliged to stand there many minutes, fingering his rusty felt hat, before Charlotte reappeared and, with a single queenly gesture, beckoned him to approach. But when he finally advanced into the room, Mrs. Fairchild, paralyzed from the waist down, might have been a chatelaine, and he the overseer, the steward, seeking audience on affairs concerning the estate. So did the inherent and ineradicable traits of relative breeding naturally and unconsciously manifest themselves. Although he had secured the coveted admission, the manner of his reception was undoubtedly discouraging to his purpose. Mrs. Fairchild's first words and her mien were a further check to approaching his object.

"Well, Slade," she began, with unconscious but none the less galling patronage, "what can I do for you? Dear me! You do not favor your father in the least.... Daughter, hand me my glasses.... Thank you.... He was such a large, florid man. But probably your health--"

"Mamma," Charlotte gently interrupted, "Mr. Slade has come on business. Perhaps he cannot be detained." She had taken a position behind her mother's chair, and had leant down until her lips were close to the lace cap. As she stood upright again, Mrs. Fairchild protested petulantly:

"Yes, yes, child; I know. I do not mean to detain him..... What were you saying, Slade?"

That individual presented a spectacle of overwhelming embarrassment. He had not opened his mouth since entering the room, and now, when he did, it was to appeal to the daughter.

"For God's sake, Miss Charlotte," he whispered hoarsely, as if he did not intend the mother to hear, "for God's sake, leave us. What I have to say is very private; indeed it is. I will have done as soon as possible."

Charlotte remained motionless behind her mother's chair, returning to this astonishing outburst a look of wonder. The older woman also regarded the man with an expression of surprise.

On rare occasions--especially under any sudden mental shock or access of feeling--Mrs. Fairchild's intellect assumed something of its old-time activity and brightness. Slade was sensible of such a change now, though unable to define it; he felt the personality manifesting itself in her look, and he turned from Charlotte to her with whom lay his first interest.

"I cannot imagine the occasion for such an extraordinary demand, Slade," the afflicted lady said at length; "but if it may be of any advantage to you my daughter shall retire."

"No, no, mamma," Charlotte protested, quickly. "I fear to leave you with this--this man. I shall be deaf and blind, but I cannot leave you."

Never before had such a request been made of her, and a growing dread had awakened in her bosom that Slade's errand boded ill for her mother. Whence come these premonitions of impending evil? To what mysterious depths of our being do they owe their source, and why is it customary to deride them? Experience certainly justifies that we bestow upon these inward promptings a serious consideration, yet we almost invariably ignore and ridicule them. And now the silent warning cries, "Stay!"

With a design quite patent, Charlotte again addressed her mother.

"Do not forget Clay," she remarked; and the vagrant memory instantly fastened upon the name.

"I remember perfectly that we were discussing Clay," was the petulant retort, "when I was directed away from the topic. Pray do not intimate that I am forgetful, Charlotte. I hope you do not so far forget the duty and respect you owe me that you can entertain such a ridiculous idea, to say nothing of uttering it. Proceed, Slade, with what you were saying about my son."

He fixed his beady eyes upon Charlotte, and coughed dryly behind his knuckly hand.

"When the girl goes," said he, recovering in a measure his composure. "Remember, I asked for and you granted an audience--private."

"An audience?"--the word caught--"a conference? Why, certainly, Slade." The request was granted with a sudden assumption of dignity--a fleeting, simple remnant of other times--that caused the daughter much concern. Charlotte feared the result of a refusal to withdraw quite as much as she feared to leave her mother alone with Slade; but with many misgivings she reluctantly turned away and departed from the room, closing the door behind her.

No earthly interest was powerful enough to allow her to remain where she might overhear one word not intended for her ears; still, the feeling of dread, in spite of Mr. Slade's assurances, was real and insistent; above all things she wanted to linger within sound of her mother's voice.

What powerful motive had dictated to-night's intrusion? For, earnestly as she despised the man, she could not imagine him pushing his way into the house upon a mere whim, or for any trifling matter. She cast back over the past as far as her memory could penetrate, but no circumstance appeared to afford the slightest explanation of the mysterious visit, unless--unless it had, indeed, to do with her brother. And here her thoughts faltered, for there were many reasons why the idea should increase her anxiety.

She glided noiselessly to the front door, and throwing it open, looked out into the night. An overwhelming sense of her loneliness and isolation fell upon her. The feeling was but momentary, however, since she attacked such encroachments of depression with as much ardor as she could muster forth from her dauntless spirit. Occasionally the black humor mastered her, but it would not do to give way to-night. What did William Slade, son of a treacherous steward, want of her mother--the poor wreck of womanhood who could bestow nothing? But Atropos, in severing the past from the present, was cutting with her shears a strange pattern, the outlines of which neither Charlotte's nor any eye could perceive.

The faint murmur of voices came to her where she stood, and although she strove not to permit her interest to acquire listening ears, it was unavoidable that she should hear and note certain things: that the caller was doing most of the talking; that, while the words were wholly unintelligible, he seemed to be speaking with vehemence, and that her mother's share in the conversation was apparently limited to occasional ejaculations of surprise. This continued for many minutes, during which Charlotte stood motionless, her tall, willowy form drawn into a rigid erectness. Under the tensity of her anxious expectation, her sensitive nostrils distended and contracted, and her eyes glowed, in the dimly lighted hall, with an unnatural brightness.

Of a sudden the voices ceased, and she heard Slade take a step or two. Next, the faint crackling of paper, the inadvertent snapping of a rubber band, were barely distinguishable--and silence.

Her stretched imagination insensibly portrayed a vivid picture of the scene: the man probably had handed her mother some document, and was awaiting her perusal of it; he stood awkwardly fumbling that ridiculous hat, while her mother searched vainly--no, she had her glasses. Possibly, under stress of the excitement, her faculties were quite normal. If so, she was reading the document--and what was its effect?

But if Mrs. Fairchild was indeed reading, she did not read far. A sudden horrified exclamation almost caused Charlotte to hasten into the room; but it was followed so quickly by the voices again that she paused. Now her mother was talking volubly. Charlotte even fancied she could detect contempt and scorn in the tones. Such being the case, the usually clouded faculties must now be abnormally active. Slade was by turns protesting, pleading, and giving way to his peevish temper. The spirited colloquy came to an abrupt end in a single piercing cry:

"Charlotte!"

For an instant her heart ceased beating; a benumbing chill paralyzed her power of volition; then she rushed to the door and threw it open with a crash.

What she beheld explained but little to her alarmed senses. Her own appearance must have been awe-inspiring, for simultaneously with her advent, Slade recoiled in obvious alarm. She could see that her mother had been powerfully moved by some recent agitation, the exciting influence of which had by no means subsided; and whatever the different phases of that emotion might have been, they had undoubtedly crystallized into a violently active antipathy for Mr. William Slade. Her right hand was extended toward Slade, palm outward, as if to ward off an expected attack; or was it to guard the papers crushed so convulsively in her left hand and pressed so fiercely against her laboring bosom?

As for the man, it was patent that the situation was an unexpected and deeply disappointing outcome of his visit. More than that, he appeared overwhelmed, stunned, crushed, as if the issue involved an essential to his being. Nevertheless, however, whether his conduct had been intentional or not, an anger, terrible in its quietness, gushed from the deep well of Charlotte's passionate nature, stirring the man from his despondency by its very intensity.

"Go!" she commanded, her flexible voice striking its deepest note; and Slade stepped back as though he had been slapped in the face.

With a swift, lithe movement, Charlotte stooped and gathered her mother's head to her own heaving breast. Slade opened his mouth, as if to speak, but the words were stopped by a repetition of the inexorable, compelling, low-voiced command:

"Go!"

He retreated nearer the door, and all at once his malignant nature was reflected in his face. He regarded Charlotte with a look of mingled malevolence and fear, and had his been the stronger personality he might have done her violence. But as it was, his bloodless lips were drawn back in a snarl of hate and baffled purpose, although he was plainly cowed by the wrath blazing in the eloquent eyes. He made an effort, nevertheless.

"My papers," he hissed. One hand was extended, the bony fingers crooked like a vulture's claw. "My papers--Elinor, you have no right--"

"Go!"

Slade was not an Ajax to defy the lightning of that glance; without another word, with but one more glance of malice and fruitless hate, he slunk from the room--from the house--beaten and confounded.

The busy little clock on the mantel--with which time was indeed fleeting--at once became the most conspicuous object in the room; falling embers on the hearth told of a dying fire, but to unheeding ears; a gust of cool, moist air swept in through the unclosed front door, and the two women maintained unaltered positions--ten minutes--fifteen--until Charlotte felt a tremor pass through her mother. Her expression softened rapidly, and her look and tones were all gentleness and solicitude as she bowed her head to the invalid's face.

"It's all right, mamma," she said, coaxingly. "He's gone. He could not have hurt you, dear; he is too contemptible a coward." In spite of the soothing voice, her expressive upper lip involuntarily curled. "Think of something else," she went on; "think of being here--in my arms--safe." But she was distressed to see that her words and calm manner made not the least impression; that her mother was utterly deaf to them. The invalid was plainly laboring under a fixed idea which neutralized every other influence; and suddenly she thrust Charlotte away from her. It did not relieve the daughter to know that the action was involuntary; that the mother was oblivious of her presence; instead, her fears were rapidly intensified by a biting doubt of the probable result of this extraordinary excitement. The expression of fear and horror had not faded from the distended eyes, and the papers were yet clutched to her breast with a grip that left the knuckles white and bloodless.

"Mother! Don't--don't look like that!" Charlotte cried in sudden alarm. "What is it? What has that horrible man done to frighten you so? Come, dear; lay your head here, and tell me all about it. There, there; nothing can harm you, mamma dear."

Quite as abruptly as she had pushed Charlotte from herself, Mrs. Fairchild now suddenly extended toward her daughter the papers still clutched so closely by a trembling hand. Even in her nervous anxiety Charlotte remarked that there were quite a number of them, and that they were typewritten and bound, after the manner of legal documents.

"Here--child--take these!" The words came convulsively, in quick, nervous gasps. "The fire--hold them down--until the last vestige is destroyed." Her utterance rose to such a mad vehemence that the words became almost incoherent. "Don't look! Don't look at them! Burn them!--burn them!--_burn them!_"

Charlotte's heart was throbbing with a maddening terror, her thoughts whirling aimlessly, like a flock of frightened birds. Without warning, Mrs. Fairchild reached out and clutched both her daughter's hand and the papers together.

"Swear, child," she went on, in the same frenzied manner; "swear to your helpless mother that you will not look at them; swear that you will burn them here before my eyes--now. Swear!"

"Mamma!" Charlotte protested, with a fleeting idea of possible future consequences,--again, the inward prompting,--"Mamma, have I the right? What may happen if I obey you? Oh, mother dear, wait! Wait until you are calmer; you are overwrought now; you do not know what you are exacting. Dear--dear mamma, I shall not look at them; but let me place--"

But this earnest though gentle opposition so fanned the fire of excitement that Charlotte instantly regretted her words.

"Child, obey me!" the mother commanded, with almost savage fierceness. "Hesitate one instant longer, and I shall hurl my worthless body to the floor and drag myself to the fireplace with my two hands." Then, in a quick transition, "O, God!--Charlotte!--my daughter!" she moaned; "to think I am helpless in this awful hour!"

"Hush, hush, dear; I will do as you say, instantly. I will hold them down to the coals until nothing remains but ashes. See--"

But stay your hand, Charlotte! What if you now hold the only existing evidence--the only barrier that stands between dear ones and disaster! Is it some premonition of the truth that causes you to hesitate?

Alas, the papers flutter to the coals!

"See, mamma; they burn."

When the last flame had expired, when nothing but flakes of black ashes were arising on the draught and vanishing up the chimney, Mrs. Fairchild began to laugh--violently, dreadfully.

It was a night of horror for Charlotte. Quite ignorant of the cause of her mother's fearful condition, she was obliged to tend the frail body through alternating fits of hysterical laughter and weeping, and to hearken to wild, disordered monologues, in which the names of Peyton Westbrook, William Slade, and her own dead father were repeated over and over again, incoherently, in a grotesque, unintelligible association.

However, out of the incomprehensible jumble of words and scraps of sentences, Charlotte began at last to construct a meaning--very vague and unsatisfying, to be sure, and exciting an almost unbearable curiosity to know more; but still a meaning. The three names seemed to be mingled in her mother's distraught mind, intimately interwoven with some nameless horror; and the poor shattered intellect was struggling beneath an obsession that a dire calamity threatened General Westbrook.

And also, as she listened, there came presently to her a most peculiar fancy--woven of such stuff as dreams are made of, but sufficiently tangible to cause her to wonder; a fancy that caused her to murmur incredulously, "Mamma and General Westbrook!" and to contrast the woman as she now was with a certain portrait of Elinor Clay which graced the daughter's chamber; to picture the General as he appeared when a young man. A great feeling of newly born pity for her helpless mother stirred in her bosom. How incredible that this querulous, and in many ways childish, invalid could have retained such a secret so many years. Indeed, what a strange coupling of names! What tragedy of starved romance lay hidden here!

But what threatened General Westbrook?

Charlotte was destined never to hear from her mother. When the clamorous little clock told her that dawn was near, Mrs. Fairchild began to grow quieter, and at last to doze; and from that sleep she can scarcely be said to have awakened, unless to be deprived of the least volition of every member, to be unable to utter an articulate sound, to be more helpless and dependent than a babe newly born, is to be counted among the quick instead of the dead.