The Chief Legatee
"Dynamite," murmured Ransom; then paused and had a small struggle with his heart, for she was looking up into his face, demanding sympathy with Georgian's eyes; and being close together on the short seat, he could not help but feel her shudders and share the intense excitement which choked her.
"Oh," she cried, as he laid his hand a moment on her arm and then took it away again, "one minute to hear! the next to find the world all still, always still,—a poor girl—not knowing how to read or write! But you cannot care about that; you cannot care about me. It's sister you want to hear about, how she came to find me; how we came here for new and terrible things to happen; always for new and terrible things to happen which I don't understand.
"Hans never came back. All sorts of policemen came into the house, doctors came, priests came, but no Hans. Mother Duda was buried, I rode in a coach at the funeral, but still no Hans. The old life was over, and when the food was all gone from the shelves, I took my little basket and went out, not meaning to come back again. And I did not. I sold my basket out; got a handful of pennies and went to the market to get something to eat. Then I went into a park, where there were benches, and sat down to rest. I did not know of any place to go to and began to cry, when a lady stopped before me, and I looked up and saw myself.
"I thought I was dreaming or had the fever again, as when I was sick with my ear, and I thought it was myself as I would look in heaven, for she had such beautiful clothes on and looked so happy. But when she talked, I could see her lips move and I couldn't hear; and I knew that I was just in the park with my empty basket and my onion and bread, and that the lady was a lady and no one I knew, only so like what I had seen of myself in the glass that I was shaking all over, and she was shaking all over, and neither of us could look away. And still her lips moved, and seeing her at last look frightened and angry that I didn't answer, I spoke and said that I was deaf; that I was very sorry that I couldn't hear because we looked so much alike, though she was a great lady and I was a very, very poor girl who hadn't any home or any friends, or anything to wear or eat but what she saw. At this her eyes grew bigger even than before, and she tried to talk some more, and when I shook my head she took hold of my arm and began drawing me away, and I went and we got on the cars, and she took me to a house and into a room where she took away my basket and put me in a chair, and took off first her hat, then my own, and showed me the two heads in a glass, and then looked at me so hard that I cried out, 'Sister,' which made her jump up and put her hand on her heart, then look at me again harder and harder, till I remembered way back in my life, and I said:
"'When I was a little girl I had a sister they called my twin. That was before I lived in the woods with the gipsies. Are you that sister grown up? The place where we played together had a tall fence with points at the top. There were flowers and there were bushes with currants on them all round the fence.'
"She made a sudden move, and I felt her arms about my neck. I think she cried a little. I didn't, I was too glad. I knew she was that sister the moment our faces touched, and I knew she would care for me, and that I needn't go back into the streets any more. So I kissed her and talked a good deal and told her what I've been telling, and she tried to answer, tried as you did to write, but all I could understand was that she meant to keep me, but not in the place where we were, and that I was to go out again. But she fixed me up a little before we went out, and she bought me some things, so that I looked different. Then we went into another house, where she talked with a woman for a long time, and then sat down with me and moved her lips very patiently, motioning me to watch and try to understand. But I was frightened and couldn't. So she gave up and, kissing me, made motions with her hands which I understood better; she wanted me to stay there while she went away, and I promised to if she would come back soon. At this she took out her watch. I was pleased with the watch, and she let me look at it, and inside against the cover I saw a picture. You know whose it was."
The depths to which her voice sank, the trembling of her tones, startled Ransom. Had she been less unfortunate, he would have moved to a different seat, but he could not show her a discourtesy after so pitiful a tale. But the nod he gave her was a grave one, and her cheek flushed and her head fell, as she softly added: "It was the first time I ever saw a face I liked—you won't mind my saying so,—and I wanted to keep the watch, but sister carried it away. She didn't tell me what it meant, her having your picture where she could see it all the time, but when she came again she made me know that you and she were married, by pointing at the picture and then throwing something white over her head; I didn't ask for the watch after that, but—"
A far-away look, a trembling of her whole body, finished this ingenuous confession. Ransom edged himself away and then was sorry for it, for her lip quivered and her hands, from being quiet, began that nervous interlacing of the fingers which bespeaks mental perturbation.
"I am very ignorant," she faltered; "perhaps I have said something wrong. I don't mean to, I want to be a good girl and please you, so that you won't send me away now sister is gone. Ah, I know what you want," she suddenly broke out, as he seized her by the arm and looked inquiringly at her. "You want me to tell why I jumped out of the carriage that night and vexed Georgian and was naughty and wouldn't speak to her. I can't, I can't. You wouldn't like it if I did. But I'm sorry now, and will never vex you, but do just what you want me to. Shall I go up-stairs now?"
He shook his head. How could he let her go with so much unsaid? She had talked frankly till she had reached the very place where his greatest interest lay. Then she had suddenly shown shyness of her subject and leaped the gap, as it were, to the present moment. How recall her to the hour when she had seen Georgian for the second time? How urge her into a description of those days succeeding his wife's flight from the hotel, of which he had no account, save the feverish lines of the letter she had sent him. He was racking his brain for some method of communicating his wishes to Anitra, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning, saw the clerk approaching him with a telegram.
He glanced at her slyly as he took it. Somehow he couldn't get used to her deafness, and expected her to give some evidence of surprise or curiosity. But she was still studying her hands, and as his eyes lingered on her downcast face he saw a tear well from her lids and wet the cheek she held partly turned from him. He wanted to kiss that tear, but refrained and opened his telegram instead. It was from Mr. Harper, and ran thus:
Expect a visitor. The man we know has left the St. Denis.
CHAPTER XIX
IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM
A prey to fresh agitation, he stepped back to Anitra's side. Surely she must understand that it was Georgian and not herself about whom he was most anxious to hear. But she did not seem to. The smile with which she greeted him suggested nothing of the past. It spoke only of the future.
"I will learn to be like sister," she impulsively cried out, rising and beaming brightly upon him. "I will forget the old gipsy ways and Mother Duda's ways, and try to be nice and pretty like my sister. And you shall learn me to read and write. I've known deaf people who learned. Then I shall know what you think; now I only know how you feel."
He shook his head, a little sadly, perhaps. There were people who could teach her these arts, but not he. He had neither the ability, the courage, nor the patience.
"Then some one shall learn me," she loudly insisted, her cheek flushing and her eye showing an angry spark. "I will not be ignorant always; I will not, I will not." And turning, she fled from his side, and he was left to think over her story and ask himself for the hundredth time what it all meant, what his own sensations meant, and what would be the outcome of conditions so complicated.
The possibly speedy appearance on the scene of Georgian's so-called brother did not detract from his difficulty. He felt helpless without the support of Mr. Harper's presence, and spent a very troubled forenoon listening to the mingled condolences and advice of people who had no interest in his concerns save such as sprang from curiosity and a morbid craving for excitement.
At two o'clock occurred the event of which he had been forewarned. A carriage drove up to the hotel and from it stepped two travelers; one of them a stranger, the other the man with the twisted jaw. Mr. Ransom advanced to meet the latter. He was anxious to listen to his first inquiries and, if possible, be the person to answer them.
He was successful in this. Mr. Hazen no sooner saw him than he accosted him without ceremony.
"What is this I hear and read about Georgian and her so-called twin?" he cried. "Nothing that I can believe, I want you to know. Georgian may have drowned herself. That is credible enough. But that the girl we read about in the papers and whom she evidently induced to come to this place with her should be the dead girl we called Anitra—why, that is all bosh—a tale to deceive the public, and possibly you, but not one to deceive me. The coincidence is much too improbable."
"'There are stranger things in heaven and earth'"—quoted Ransom; but Hazen was already in conversation with the group of hotel idlers who had crowded up at sound of his loud voice.
After a careful look which had taken in all of their faces, he had approached one young fellow, covering the lower part of his face as he did so.
"Halloo! Yates," he called out. "Don't you remember the day we tied two chickens together, leg to leg, and sent them tumbling down the hill back of old Wylie's barn?"
"Alf Hazen!" shouted the fellow, thus accosted. "Why, I thought you—"
"Dead, eh? Of course you did. So did everybody else. But I've come to life, you see. With sad marks of battle on me," he continued, dropping his hand. "You all recognize me?"
"Yes, yes," rose in one acclaim from a dozen or more throats after a moment of awkward uncertainty.
"I know the eyes," vigorously asserted one.
"And the voice," chimed in another. After which rose a confused babel of ejaculations and exclamatory questions, among which one could detect:
"How did it happen, Alf?" "What took off your jaw?" and other equally felicitous expressions.
"I'll tell you all about that later," he replied, after silence had in a measure been restored. "What I want to say now is this. Is it believable that simultaneously with my own return from the grave another member of my family should reappear before you from an older and much more certain burying? I tell you no. The riddle is one which calls for quite another solution and I have come to assist you in finding it."
Here he cast a sinister glance at Ransom.
The latter met the implied accusation with singular calmness.
"Any assistance will be welcome," said he, "which will enable us to solve this very serious problem." Then, as Hazen's lip curled, he added with dignified candor, "I scorn to retort by throwing any doubt on your assertion of relationship to my lost wife, or the possibility of these good people being misled by your confident bearing and a possible likeness about the eyes to the boy they knew. But one question I will hazard, and that before we have gone a step further. Why does it seem so credible to you that Georgian, a much loved and loving woman, should have leaped to a watery death within a week of her marriage? You have just stated that you found no difficulty in that. Does not that statement call for some explanation? All your old friends here must see that this is my due as well as hers."
For an instant the man hesitated, but in that instant his hand slipped from his mouth over which he had again laid it, and his whole face, with its changed lines and the threatening, almost cruel expression which these gave it, appeared in all its combined eagerness and force. A murmur escaped the watchful group about him, but this affected him little. His eyes, which he had fixed on Ransom, sharpened a trifle, perhaps, and his tone grew a thought more sarcastic as he finally retorted:
"I will explain myself to you but not to this crowd. And not to you till I am sure of the facts which as yet have reached me only through the newspapers. Let me hear a full account of what has transpired here since you all came to town. I have an enormous interest in the matter;—a family interest, as you are well aware for all your badly hidden insinuations."
"Follow me," was the quiet reply. "There is a room on this very floor where we can talk undisturbed."
Mr. Hazen cast a quick glance behind him at the man who had driven up with him and whom nobody had noticed till now. Then without a word he separated himself from the chattering group encircling him and stepped after Mr. Ransom into the small room where the latter had held his first memorable conversation with the lawyer.
"Now," said he as the door swung to behind them, "plain language and not too much of it. I have no time to waste, but the truth about Georgian I must know."
Ransom settled himself. He felt bound to comply with the other's request, but he wished to make sure of not saying too much, or too little. Hazen's attack had startled him. It revealed one of two things. Either this man of mystery had assumed the offensive to hide his own connection with this tragedy, or his antagonism was an honest one, springing from an utter disbelief in the circumstances reported to him by the press and such gossips as he had encountered on his way to Sitford.
With the first possibility he felt himself unable to cope without the aid of Mr. Harper; the second might be met with candor. Should he then be candid with this doubter, relate to him the facts as they had unrolled themselves before his own eyes;—secret facts—convincing ones—facts which must prove to him that whether Georgian did or did not lie at the bottom of the mill-stream, the woman now in the house was his sister Anitra, lost to him and the rest of the family for many years, but now found again and restored to her position as a Hazen and Georgian's twin. The discovery might not prove welcome. It would have a tendency to throw Mr. Hazen's own claim into the disrepute he would cast on hers. But this consideration could have no weight with Mr. Ransom. He decided upon candor at all costs. It suited his nature best, and it also suited the strange and doubtful situation. Mr. Harper might have concluded differently, but Mr. Harper was not there to give advice; and the matter would not wait. Little as he understood this Hazen, he recognized that he was not a man to trifle with. Something would have to be said or done.
Meeting the latter's eye frankly, he remarked:
"I have no wish to keep anything back from you. I am as much struck as you are by the mystery of this whole occurrence. I was as hard to convince. This is my story. It involves all that is known here with the exception of such facts as have been kept from us by the three parties directly concerned—of which three I consider you one."
As the last four words fell from his lips he looked for some change, slight and hardly perceptible perhaps, in the other's expression. But he was doomed to disappointment. The steady regard held, nothing moved about the man, not even the hand into which the poor disfigured chin had fallen. Ransom suppressed a sigh. His task was likely to prove a blind one. He had a sense of stumbling in the dark, but the gaze he had hoped to see falter compelled him to proceed, and he told his story without subterfuge or suppression.
One thing, and only one thing, caused a movement in the set figure before him. When he mentioned the will which Georgian had made a few hours prior to her disappearance, Hazen's hand slipped aside from the wound it had sought to cover, and Ransom caught sight of the sudden throb which deepened its hue. It was the one infallible sign that the man was not wholly without feeling, and it had sprung to life at an intimation involving money.
When his tale was quite finished, he rose. So did Hazen.
"Let us see this girl," suggested the latter.
It was the first word he had spoken since Ransom began his story.
"She is up-stairs. I will go see—"
"No, we will go see. I particularly desire to take her unawares."
Ransom offered no objection. Perhaps he felt interested in the experiment himself. Together they left the room, together they went up-stairs. A turmoil of questions followed them from the throng of men and boys gathered in the halls, but they returned no answer and curiosity remained unsatisfied.
Once in the hall above, Ransom stopped a moment to deliberate. He could not enter Anitra's room unannounced, and he could not make her hear by knocking. He must find the landlady.
He knew Mrs. Deo's room. He had had more than one occasion to visit it during the last two days. With a word of explanation to Hazen, he passed down the hall and tapped on the last door at the extreme left. No one answered, but the door standing ajar, he pushed it quietly open, being anxious to make sure that Mrs. Deo was not there.
The next moment he was beckoning to Hazen.
"Look!" said he, holding the door open with one hand and pointing with the other to a young girl sitting on a low stool by the window, mending, or trying to mend, a rent in her skirt.
"Why, that's Georgian!" exclaimed Hazen, and hastily entering he approached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and out of the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once in the attempt.
"Georgian!" he cried again and yet more emphatically, as he stepped up in front of her.
The young girl failed to notice. Awkwardly drawing her thread out to its extreme length, she prepared to insert her needle again, when her eye caught sight of his figure bending over her, and she looked up quietly and with an air of displeasure, which pleased Ransom,—he could hardly tell why. This was before her eyes reached his face; when they had, it was touching to see how she tried to hide the shock caused by its deformity, as she said with a slight gesture of dismissal:
"I'm quite deaf. I cannot hear what you say. If it is the landlady you want, she has gone down-stairs for a minute; perhaps, to the kitchen."
He did not retreat, if anything he approached nearer, and Ransom was surprised to observe the force and persuasive power of his expression as he repeated:
"No nonsense, Georgian," opening and shutting his hands as he spoke, in curious gesticulations which her eye mechanically followed but which seemed to convey no meaning to her, though he evidently expected them to and looked surprised (Ransom almost thought baffled) when she shook her head and in a sweet, impassive way reiterated:
"I cannot hear and I do not understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. I'm sorry, but you'll have to go to some one else. I'm very unfortunate. I have to mend this dress and I don't know how."
Hazen, who could hardly tear his eyes from her face, fell slowly back as she painfully and conscientiously returned to her task. "Good God!" he murmured, as his eye sought Ransom's. "What a likeness!" Then he looked again at the girl, at the wave of her raven black hair breaking into little curls just above her ear; at the smooth forehead rendered so distinguished by the fine penciling of her arching brows; at the delicate nose with nostrils all alive to the beating of an over-anxious heart; at the mouth, touching in its melancholy so far beyond her years; and lastly at the strong young figure huddled on the little stool; and bending forward again, he uttered two or three quick sentences which Ransom could not catch.
His persistence, or the near approach of his face to hers, angered her. Rising quickly to her feet, she vehemently cried out:
"Go away from here. It is not right to keep on talking to a deaf girl after she has told you she cannot hear you." Then catching sight of Ransom, who had advanced a step in his sympathy for her, she gave a little sigh of relief and added querulously:
"Make this man go away. This is the landlady's room. I don't like to have strangers talk to me. Besides—" here her voice fell, but not so low as to be inaudible to the subject of her remark, "he's not pretty. I've seen enough of men and women who are—"
At this point Ransom drew Hazen out into the hall.
"What do you think now?" he demanded.
Hazen did not reply. The room they had just left seemed to possess a strange fascination for him. He continued to look back at it as he preceded Ransom down the hall. Ransom did not press his questions, but when they were on the point of separating at the head of the stairs, he held Hazen back with the words:
"Let us come to some understanding. Neither of us can desire to waste strength in wrong conclusions. Can that woman be other than your own sister?"
"No." The denial was absolute. "She is my sister."
"Anitra?" emphasized Ransom.
The smile which he received in reply was strangely mirthless.
"I never rush to conclusions," was Hazen's remark after a moment of possibly mutual heart-beat and unsettling suspense. "Ask me that same question to-morrow. Perhaps by then I shall be able to answer you."
CHAPTER XX
BETWEEN THE ELDERBERRY BUSHES
"No."
The word came from Ransom. He had reached the end of his patience and was determined to have it out with this man on the spot.
"Come into my room," said he. "If you doubt her, you doubt me; and in the present stress of my affairs this demands an immediate explanation."
"I have no time to enter your room, and I cannot linger here any longer talking on a subject which at the present moment is not clear to either of us," was the resolute if not quite affable reply. "Later, when my conclusions are made, I will see you again. Now I am going to eat and refresh myself. Don't follow me; it will do you no good."
He turned to descend. Ransom had an impulse to seize him by his twisted throat and drag from him the secret which his impassive features refused to give up. But Ransom was no fool and, stepping back out of the way of temptation, he allowed him to escape without further parley.
Then he went to his room. But, after an hour or two spent with his own thoughts, his restlessness became so great that he sought the gossips below for relief. He found them all clustered about Hazen, who was reeling off stories by the mile. This was unendurable to him and he was striding off, when Hazen burst away from his listeners and, joining Ransom, whispered in his ear:
"I saw her go by the window just now on her way up-street. What can she find there to interest her? Where is she going?"
"I don't know. She doesn't consult me as to her movements. Probably she has gone for a walk. She looks as if she needs it."
"So do you," was the unexpected retort given by Hazen, as he stepped back to rejoin his associates.
Ransom paused, watching him askance in doubt of the suggestion, in doubt of the man, in doubt of himself. Then he yielded to an impulse stronger than any doubt and slipped out into the highway, where he turned, as she had turned, up-street.
But not without a struggle. He hated himself for his puppet-like acceptance of the hint given him by a man he both distrusted and disliked. He felt his dignity impaired and his self-confidence shaken, yet he went on, following the high road eagerly and watching with wary eye for the first glimpse of the slight figure which was beginning to make every scene alive to him.
It had rained heavily and persistently the last time he came this way, but to-day the sun was shining with a full radiance, and the trees stretching away on either side of the road were green with the tender tracery of early leafage; a joy-compelling sight which may have accounted for the elasticity of his step as he ascended one small hill after another in the wake of a fluttering skirt.
It was the cemetery road, and odd as the fancy was, he felt that he should overtake her at the old gate, behind which lay so many of her name. Here he had seen her name before its erasement from the family monument, and here he should see—could he say Anitra if he found her bending over those graves; the woman who could not hear, who could not read,—whose childish memory, if she had any in connection with this spot, could not be distinct enough or sufficiently intelligent to guide her to this one plot? No. Human credulity can go far, but not so far as that. He knew that all his old doubts would return if, on entering the cemetery, he found her under the brown shaft carved with the name of Hazen.
