Anne Part 64

When the trial began, not only was Miss Teller present, but Mrs. Varce and Isabel, Mrs. Bannert and her daughter-in-law, together with others equally well known as friends of Helen's, and prominent members of New York's fashionable society.

Multomah, the little county town, was excited; its one hotel was crowded. The country people came in to attend the trial from miles around; great lawyers were to be present, there was to be "mighty fine speaking." The gentleman had murdered his wife for the million dollars she constantly carried with her. The gentleman had murdered his wife because she had just discovered that he was already married before he met her, and he was afraid she would reveal the secret. A local preacher improved the occasion by a sermon decked profusely with Apollyons and Abaddons. It was not clearly known what he meant, or where he stood; but the discourse was listened to by a densely packed crowd of farming people, who came out wiping their foreheads, and sat down on convenient tombstones to talk it over, and eat their dinners, brought in baskets, trying the case again beforehand for the five-hundredth time, with texts and Scripture phrases thrown in to give it a Sabbath flavor.

The New York dailies had sent their reporters; every evening Anne read their telegraphic summaries of the day's events; every morning, the account of the same in detail. She was not skillful enough to extract the real evidence from the ma.s.s of irrelevant testimony with which it was surrounded, the questions and answers, the confusing pertinacity of the lawyers over some little point which seemed to her as far from the real subject as a blade of gra.s.s is from the fixed stars. She turned, therefore, to the printed comments which day by day accompanied the report of the proceedings, gathering from them the progress made, and their ideas of the probabilities which lay in the future. The progress seemed rapid; the probabilities were d.a.m.ning. No journal pretended that they were otherwise. Yet still the able pens of the calmer writers counselled deliberation. "There have been cases with even closer evidence than this," they warningly wrote, "in which the accused, by some unexpected and apparently trivial turn in the testimony, has been proven clearly innocent. In this case, while the evidence is strong, it is difficult to imagine a motive. Mrs. Heathcote was much attached to her husband; she was, besides, a beautiful, accomplished, and fascinating woman. That a man should deliberately plan to murder such a wife, merely in order to obtain possession of wealth which was already practically his, is incredible; and until some more reasonable motive is discovered, many will refuse to believe even the evidence."

Anne, reading this sentence, felt faint. So far the mysterious testimony to which vague allusion had been made in the beginning had not been brought forward; the time had been occupied by the evidence concerning the events at Timloesville, and the questioning and cross-questioning of the Timloesville witnesses. A "more reasonable motive." The veiled shape that accompanied her seemed to a.s.sume more definite outline, and to grow from Dread into Fear. And yet she could not tell of what she was afraid.

The days pa.s.sed, and she wondered how it was that she could still eat, and sleep, and speak as usual, while her whole being was away in that little Pennsylvania town. She did speak and teach as usual, but she did not eat or sleep. Something besides food sustained her. Was it hope? Or fear? Oh, why did not all the world cry out that he was not, could not be guilty! Were people all mad, and deaf, and blind? She lived on in a suspense which was like a continual endurance of suffocation, which yet never quite attains the relief of death.

Miss Teller's lawyers labored with skill and vigilance; all that talent--nay, more, genius--could do, they did. Their theory was that the murder was committed by a third person, who entered Mrs. Heathcote's room by the same outside stairway which her husband had used, after his departure; and they defied the prosecution to prove that they were wrong. In answer to this theory the prosecution presented certain facts, namely: that Heathcote was seen entering by the outside stairway, and that no one else was seen; that the impressions found there were those of a left hand, and that Heathcote was at the time left-handed; that a towel, marked with the name of the hotel and stained with blood, was found on the river-bank at the end of a direct trail from the garden, and that the chamber-maid testified that, whereas she had placed four towels in the room a few hours before, there were in the morning but two remaining, and that no others were missing from the whole number owned by the hotel.

At this stage of the proceedings, Anne, sitting in her own room as usual now in the evening, with one newspaper in her hand and the others scattered on the floor by her side, heard a knock on the door below, but, in her absorption, paid no attention to it. In a few moments, however, Nora came up to say that Mr. Dexter was in the parlor, and wished to see her.

Here was an unexpected trial. She had sent a short, carefully guarded answer to his long letter, and he had not written again. It had been comparatively easy to guard written words. But could she command those that must be spoken? She bathed her face in cold water, and stood waiting until she felt that she had called up a calmer expression; she charged herself to guard every look, every word, even the tones of her voice. Then she went down.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

"I can account for nothing you women do, although I have lived among you seventy-five years."--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

As she entered the little parlor, Dexter came forward to meet her. "You are looking very well," he said, almost reproachfully.

"I am very well," she answered. "And you?"

"Not well at all. What with the constant and hara.s.sing work I am doing, and this horrible affair concerning poor Helen, I confess that I feel worn and old. It is not often that I acknowledge either. I have been busy in the city all day, and must return to my post on the midnight train; but I had two or three hours to spare, and so I have come out to see you. Before we say anything else, however, tell me about yourself.

How is it with you at present?"

Glad of a respite, she described to him, with more details than she had hitherto thought necessary, her position, her pupils, and her daily life. She talked rapidly, giving him no opportunity to speak; she hardly knew herself as she went along. At last, however, he did break through the stream of her words. "I am glad you find interest in these matters,"

he said, coldly. "With me it is different; I can think of nothing but poor Helen."

It was come: now for self-control. All her words failed suddenly; she could not speak.

"Are you not haunted by it?" he continued. "Do you not constantly see her lying there asleep, that pale hair unbraided, those small helpless hands bare of all their jewels--poor defenseless little hands, decked only with the mockery of that wedding ring?"

He was gazing at the wall, as though it were all pictured there. Anne made no reply, and after a pause he went on. "Helen was a fascinating woman; but she was, or could be if she chose, an intensely exasperating woman as well. I am no coward; I think I may say the reverse; but I would rather be alone with a tigress than with such a woman as she would have been, if roused to jealous fury. She would not have stirred, she would not have raised her voice, but she would have spoken words that would have stung like asps and cut like Damascus blades. No devil would have shown in that kind of torment greater ingenuity. I am a self-controlled man, yet I can imagine Helen Lorrington driving me, if she had tried, into such a state of frenzy that I should hardly know what I was doing. In such a case I should end, I think, by crushing her in my arms, and fairly strangling the low voice that taunted me. But--I could never have stabbed her in her sleep!"

Again he paused, and again Anne kept silence. But he did not notice it; he was absorbed in his own train of thought.

"It is a relief to speak of this to you," he continued, "for you knew Helen, and Heathcote also. Do you know I can imagine just how she worked upon him; how that fair face and those narrow eyes of hers wrought their deadly darts. Her very want of strength was an accessory; for if she could have risen and struck him, if she had been _capable_ of any such strong action, the exasperation would have been less. But that a creature so helpless, one whose slight form he had been used to carry about the house in his arms, one who could not walk far unaided--that such a creature should lie there, in all her delicate beauty, and with barbed words deliberately torment him-- Anne, I can imagine a rush of madness which might well end in murder and death. But not a plot. If he had killed her in a pa.s.sion, and then boldly avowed the deed, giving himself up, I should have had some sympathy with him, in spite of the horror of the deed. But to arrange the method of his crime (as he evidently tried to do) so that he would not be discovered, but be enabled quietly to inherit her money--bah! I almost wish I were the hangman myself! Out on the border he would have been lynched long ago."

His listener still remained mute, but a little fold of flesh inside her lips was bitten through by her clinched teeth in the effort she made to preserve that muteness.

It seemed to have been a relief to Dexter to let out those strong words.

He paused, turned toward Anne, and for the first time noted her dress.

"Are you in mourning?" he asked, doubtfully, looking at the unbroken black of her attire.

"It is the same dress I have worn for several months."

He did not know enough of the details of a woman's garb to see that the change came from the absence of white at the throat and wrists. After Helen's death poor Anne had sewed black lace in her plain black gown; it was the only mourning she could allow herself.

The moment was now come when she must say something. Dexter, his outburst over, was leaning back in his chair, looking at her. "Miss Teller has gone to Multomah, I believe," she remarked, neutrally.

"Yes; singularly enough, she believes him innocent. I heard, while in the city to-day, that the Varces and Bannerts and others of that set believe it also, and are all at Multomah 'for the moral effect.' For the moral effect!" He threw back his head and laughed scornfully. "I wish I had time to run up there myself," he added, "to dwell upon the moral effect of all those fine ladies. However, the plain American people have formed their own opinion of this case, and are not likely to be moved by such influences. They understand. This very evening, on the train, I heard a mechanic say, 'If the jurymen were only fine ladies, now, that Heathcote would get off yet.'"

"How can you repeat such words?" said the girl, blazing out suddenly and uncontrollably, as a fire which has been long smothered bursts into sudden and overpowering flame at the last.

"Of course it is bad taste to jest on such a subject. I only-- Why, Anne, what is the matter?" For she had risen and was standing before him, her eyes brilliant with an expression which was almost hate.

"You believe that he did it?" she said.

"I do."

"And I do _not_! You say that Helen taunted him, that she drove him into a frenzy; you imagine the scene, and picture its details. Know that Helen loved him with her whole heart. Whatever she may have been to you, to him she was utterly devoted, living upon his words and his smile. She esteemed herself blessed simply to be near him--in his presence; and, on that very night, she said that no wife was ever so happy, and that on her knees she had thanked her Creator for that which made her life one long joy."

Gregory Dexter's face had showed the profoundest wonder while the excited girl was speaking, but by the time she ceased he had, in his quick way, grasped something of the truth, unexpected and astonishing though it was.

"You know this?" he said. "Then she wrote to you."

"Yes."

"On the evening of her death?"

"Yes."

"Bagshot testifies that when she left the room, at nine, Mrs. Heathcote was writing. Was that this letter to you?"

"I presume it was."

"When and how was it mailed? Or rather, what is the date of the postmark?"

"The next morning."

Dexter looked at her searchingly. "This may prove to be very important,"

he said.

"I know it--now."

"Why have you not spoken before?"

"To whom could I speak? Besides, it has not seemed important to me until now; for no one has suggested that she did not love her husband, that she tormented him and drove him into fury, save yourself alone."

"You will see that others will suggest it also," said Dexter, unmoved by her scorn. "Are you prepared to produce this letter?"

"I have it."

"Can I see it?"