My Heart Laid Bare (37 page)

Eva sits staring at her beringed hands, too greatly moved to speak.

“I hope I haven't upset you, Eva? But I must speak my heart. But if—if you wish—if I'm refused—I will never speak in such a way again; I will, in fact, leave Philadelphia forever.”

A brave statement, but sincere. At this moment, achingly sincere.

For truly he is in love with the woman. Her mature sobriety, intelligence, wit; her classical features, the austere plainness of her face and hair with their look of dignity. For surely the goddess of love might inhabit a woman like Eva, as any younger woman.

St. Goar impulsively kisses Eva's hand. She allows the kiss, even as she moves to withdraw her hand in a shy, abashed gesture, like that of a young girl.

Eva says slowly, hesitantly, that perhaps he would not wish her for his bride, if he knew her better.

St. Goar says, smiling, though startled, that such a notion isn't possible; he can't hope to know her well enough.

Eva says, studying her hands, and the sparkling gems of her rings that seem incongruous on her ordinary, slightly stubby fingers, that there are different sorts of knowing.

Yes? And what are these?

Speaking carefully, as if dreading a misunderstanding, Eva tells St. Goar that one sort of “knowing” has to do with social position and not sentiment; and that, if he knew her secret, he might feel differently about loving her . . . and wanting to marry her.

Feel differently! Impossible!

But St. Goar has begun to feel a chill. Hesitantly he moves to take the lady's hand again; indeed, both her hands—so small, so chill!—that he might warm them with his own. And he says softly that there could be no secret that would dissuade him from his love for her . . . for, in loving her, he has felt his soul expand to touch hers; he is certain that he knows her from within, more subtly and more powerfully than she knows herself.

And Eva says with lowered eyes that he is kind; very kind; yet his knowledge of her is faulty, if he has believed what people say about her . . . that, for instance, as the widow of a well-to-do man, she is herself well-to-do.

And St. Goar squeezes her hands, gently; and murmurs that it doesn't matter to him, not in the slightest, what her financial situation is.

And Eva says stubbornly that it surely does; it must; for he's a man of the world, and must have expectations—“As scores of ‘admirers' have had, over the years”—which would be rudely shattered by the truth.

And St. Goar says quietly, “Why then, Eva dear, what
is
the truth?”

And Eva draws a deep breath, and says quickly, “I will tell you, Albert—and beg your confidence. As my attorneys know, and two or three other persons, I, Eva Clement-Stoddard, have virtually no money at all, but am the mere custodian of my late husband's fortune. Most of the estate will go to a young nephew of his when the boy comes of age in two years. Of course I am to be left with something . . . I will never be a pauper . . . but I'm hardly the woman so many believe me to be. It has been my task to maintain a certain role, out of pride; I confess myself, for all my pretense of integrity, a hypocrite . . . a creature of vanity . . . .This house, and its furnishings, and even my newly acquired works of art are not truly
mine
, you see; I am only their custodian; and when I am exposed, Albert, when all the world knows of my situation, I can hardly expect mercy—for I do not deserve it.”

Eva speaks in so low and shamed a voice, St. Goar scarcely under
stands her at first.
Can it be, this!—the widow's secret! She is only the custodian of another's wealth.
He moves to comfort her, but she remains sitting stiffly; turned slightly to one side; her heavy-lidded gaze lowered, and her lashes bright with tears. She dares not look at her lover for fear that he loves her no longer, yet, if only she would look, she would see how he stares with a queer hungry compassion: how radiant his face is with the certitude of Love. Gently, by degrees, he draws her into his arms, murmuring those word she hadn't dared hope to hear: “Dearest Eva, my darling Eva, of course what you say makes no difference to me, nor to my love for you. How can you think it! My love,” he says, pressing her to his bosom, and cupping her overheated face in his hand, “—if it did not sound unfeeling, I would confess that your lack of a worldly fortune actually pleases me. For now, with my modest annuity, and the earnings from my various investments, I, Albert St. Goar, will have the privilege of ‘rescuing' Eva Clement-Stoddard from want . . . if you will allow me.”

Half-frightened, Eva says that she doesn't deserve such kindness, as she has been deceiving him these many months; and St. Goar replies that it is hardly
kindness
on his part—it is
Love.

And, suddenly, Eva gives way to a fit of convulsive weeping.

And St. Goar hugs her close.

As the church bells sound the hour of one o'clock, St. Goar takes his leave of Mrs. Clement-Stoddard, near-drunken with happiness; and wondering now why he had ever doubted his powers. For Venus Aphrodite smiles upon him still; has always smiled upon him; and will reward him richly, for his adoration of
her.

He is far too excited, of course, to return immediately to Rittenhouse Square. So he drops by the public room of the rowdy Pennsylvania Union Hotel, where his face and his name are unknown, and where he is not likely to meet any of his Philadelphia acquaintances. Standing alone at the bar, he downs a celebratory rye and water—and another—and yet another: for Eva
Clement-Stoddard has agreed to marry him, sometime in January of 1917; and all has gone as, in his wildest fancies, he wished.

And does he love her?—
he does.

And does he believe for an instant that she is truly but the “custodian” of her wealth?—
he does not.

“Eva is a very poor liar,” he thinks, “—doubtless because she has had so little practice. As if I, of all persons, could be taken in by her improbable tale—her shameful ‘secret'! Why, little Millie at the age of six could have played that scene more convincingly . . . .”

In a while, perhaps even the next day, Eva will make another confession to him: that she was advised (strongly against her inclination, no doubt) to pretend to be poor, to test St. Goar's love.

And St. Goar will profess stunned surprise.

And St. Goar might even pretend to be somewhat . . . hurt.

But in the end he will of course forgive her, for he loves her just the same; and will always love her.

For Aphrodite has smiled upon him another time; and saved his very life.

I
n the hot dry summer of 1914, through the vast territories of Wyoming, Colorado, and, in most concentration, New Mexico, hundreds of no
tices were posted to the effect that a Philadelphian named Roland Shrikesdale III was missing; having been last seen in mid-April, in Denver, at the Edinburgh Hotel. A $50,000 reward was offered to any person or persons with information leading to Shrikesdale's whereabouts, said information to be delivered to local law enforcement agents, or telegraphed to Mrs. Anna Emery Shrikesdale, the missing man's mother, in Philadelphia. Shrikesdale was described as a gentleman of refined habits—thirty-three years old—measuring five feet seven inches, and weighing approximately one hundred eighty pounds—with brown eyes, a mole near his left eye, and fair brown curly hair. His photograph, starkly reproduced, showed the head and shoulders of an unhealthily plump young man with a squinting smile.

The newspapers took avidly to the story, as Shrikesdale was principal heir to one of the great Eastern fortunes; and great pathos derived from the fact that the missing man's mother was so intent upon finding him she'd embarked westward herself by train, only to be struck down by illness two hours out of Philadelphia. Invalided in Castlewood Hall, Mrs. Shrikesdale bravely allowed rapacious reporters to interview her in the hope that their stories, reprinted across the country, often with likenesses of Roland (she offered them the use of photographs, chalk drawings, even an oil portrait painted at the time of his graduation from Haverford College, by William Merritt Chase) would bring him home. She never doubted for an instant, she said, that her boy was alive—she knew he would be found soon (“For God would not punish us so cruelly, I am sure”); yet feared he'd been taken ill, or was lost or injured in the wilderness. The West was so inhumanly vast!—the state of New Mexico alone, about which one never heard, appeared of monstrous size on the map.

“Yet I am certain—I
know
—that Roland is alive,” Mrs. Shrikesdale declared.

In the last letter received from her son, dated 15 April, on the stationery of the Edinburgh Hotel, Roland spoke excitedly of traveling south by train to New Mexico, for “fishing, hunting, and Adventure”; his compan
ion being a Westerner of whom he had grown exceedingly fond, and whom, he said, he would trust with his life. (“Harmon is a gentleman of
Christian
yet
manly
sensibility, Mother,” Roland said, “—the likes of which are so rarely to be found in Philadelphia! If ever you two meet, I am sure you will like each other, Mother, but I doubt very much that
he
could be enticed to come East.”) In evident haste Roland had added a postscript to the effect that, since he would be off in the wilds for an indeterminate period of time, Mrs. Shrikesdale should not expect to hear from him again for five weeks, until mid-May at the very earliest.

As she had begged her son from the first not to embark upon so fool-hardy a trip (undertaken, as Roland mysteriously insisted, for the sake of his “physical and spiritual health”), Mrs. Shrikesdale was gravely worried at this point; and stirred quite a fuss in the family, well before mid-May, with her proposal that Roland's cousins—Bertram, Lyle, and Willard—be sent to fetch him home. (As Roland's mere existence clouded the happiness of these hot-tempered young men, who stood to inherit a great deal of money if in fact he were dead, this naive proposal on Mrs. Shrikesdale's part was met with extreme resistance.) By the end of May, however, when no word came from Roland, the family at last reported him officially missing; and, not trusting to law enforcement authorities alone, hired a team of Pinkerton's best detectives to go west at once. For Roland was surely alive, as Anna Emery Shrikesdale insisted.
For God would not be so cruel to her, a poor widow, who had always adored Him.

Thus was launched, with more fanfare than the Shrikesdales might have wished, the search for young Roland, the “Missing Heir,” or the “Missing Millionaire,” as the press called him; with a great deal of feverish excitement throughout the West, and vigorous competition among law enforcement officers and civilians alike for the $50,000 reward. (Which was, at the desperate mother's insistence, gradually increased to $75,000 by early autumn, when Roland was finally found.) In New Mexico in particular, it was marveled that a new gold rush seemed to have begun, for bounty
hunters cropped up everywhere, looking for Roland Shrikesdale III; and men who bore only a glancing resemblance to him were brought forward, often forcibly—sometimes bound and manacled, and thrown over the backs of mules! In Las Cruces, northwest of El Paso, a man led federal officers to a shallow grave in which, he claimed, lay the remains of Roland Shrikesdale III: these being but the bleached bones of someone who had been dead a very long time, very likely the victim of murder. In Central City, Colorado, a female employee of the infamous Black Swan sporting house announced to reporters that she had married the young heir shortly before he disappeared, had a ring (ten-carat diamond in a cheap gold-plated setting) to prove it;
and was carrying his child.
Yet more audaciously, in Pueblo County, Colorado, a bearded ruffian of no less than forty years of age made his claim to the sheriff that he himself was Roland Shrikesdale III!—and demanded that the reward money be handed over to
him
at once.

The search reached a peak of sorts in midsummer, and then began to subside, as a consequence of both the unusual heat and aridity of the season, and the perplexing news from abroad, which began at last to take precedence in newspapers over more local affairs. No one could quite comprehend what was happening in Europe: why, on 1 August, did Germany formally declare war on Russia?—and then, on 3 August, on France? Within a matter of days Germany invaded Belgium—England declared war on Germany—even Japan, a world away, declared itself in a state of war with Germany; and President Wilson hastily proclaimed the neutrality of the United States. How was it possible that all of Europe had gone to war over one or another trifling assassination, of some obscure Austrian duke or archduke, with a name no one could remember? . . . What were Americans to make of such behavior? So, when a stranger appeared on the outskirts of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on the morning of 8 September, afoot, alone, in a dazed and disoriented state, his face caked with dried blood and his clothing badly torn and stained, no one guessed at first that this might be the missing Roland. He could not speak coherently, even to supply his
name, or to explain what had happened to him; and he had on his person no identification, and no personal effects other than a broken pocket watch.

A few hours later, however, identification was tentatively made by a deputy marshal who brought with him the Shrikesdale poster, and all of Fort Sumner was aroused.

For surely this
was
the missing millionaire: being approximately thirty-three years of age; of medium height, and stocky—though at the present time his face was gaunt, as if he'd lost weight quickly; his hair was indeed brown, and might be said to be curly; his eyes too were brown, or nearly so (for in certain lights brown and silvery-gray resemble each other closely). If he didn't look altogether like the smiling young man on the poster, being, after all, rather the worse for wear after his ordeal in the desert, it was remarked that his clothing, though badly torn and filthy, appeared to be of an uncommon cut; and it seemed clear that, even in his initial feverish state, when the only coherent word he could utter was
Mother!
he was an Easterner of genteel upbringing.

Surely it was he, and no one else!

And the reward would be divided up among the half dozen Fort Sumner residents who had found him!

A shame, some observers noted, that the millionaire's handsome face would very likely be permanently scarred by an ugly wound running from his left temple to his jaw that had narrowly missed, it seemed, gouging out his left eye; deeply embedded with dirt and sand, and badly infected beneath its encrustation of coagulated blood. While the wound was being drained and treated by a Fort Sumner doctor, the injured man moaned in pain and terror, and spoke of a landslide—he and his companion trapped—thrown, along with their horses, over the edge of a cliff—pitched down a canyon wall amid a nightmare of rock, dirt, and sand—his friend (the name sounded like Herman, or Harmon) killed immediately—both horses crippled—only he surviving; yet barely alive; and unable to move for hours from where he'd fallen.

How many days ago the tragic accident had occurred, he had no idea; nor did he know where it had taken place. The very name
New Mexico
seemed to mean nothing to him.

Nor did the name
Roland Shrikesdale
mean anything.

(Although the doctor attending him believed that the injured man evinced some peculiar agitation, a distinct fluttering of the pulses, when the name was spoken close to his ear.)

Questioned the following day by local authorities, who were certain by now that this
was
the missing millionaire, he was incapable of collecting his thoughts well enough to answer. Within minutes he began to weep in hoarse gulping sobs; and so squirmed and writhed in his bed, he seemed on the verge of a convulsive fit. In a delirium he cried out “Mother!” And, less frequently, “Harmon!” and “God have mercy!”

Clearly he was a victim of amnesia, brought about by the injury to his head, or sunstroke, or a deadly combination of both; and it was thought purposeless to interrogate him at the present time.

So he was allowed to rest, passing in and out of consciousness, and waking to extreme confusion, as if he had not the slightest idea where he was, or that he was now safe.

(
A MIRACLE, FORT
Sumner thought, that a lone man, afoot, could have survived for more than a day or two in the blistering desert heat, let alone drag himself free of a landslide.

But of course miracles do happen, from time to time.

And bring with them distinct rewards, for the deserving.)

The first Pinkerton detective to arrive at Fort Sumner made a cursory examination of the sick man, studying several likenesses of Roland Shrikes
dale III he had on his person, and declared that this surely
was
Shrikesdale; for one had to allow after all for the man's ravaged state.

The second Pinkerton detective, arriving early the next day, was less certain: for, in his opinion, the amnesiac's eyes were not exactly brown . . . and, even allowing for his present condition, wasn't his forehead rather broad and square, and his jaw strong, whereas Roland Shrikesdale's face was represented as plump and innocently round? Yet, after a few hours' deliberation, the man finally came to the conclusion that of course this
must
be Shrikesdale; for the odds against there being two lost men in this part of the world who so closely resembled each other were unthinkable.

The official identification of Roland Shrikesdale III was made the following week, by Anna Emery's most trusted attorney, Montgomery Bagot, sent out to Fort Sumner to fetch poor Roland home.

And of course it
was
Roland, as Bagot saw at once.

He had known his client's son, after all, since a very young age; and was confident that he could recognize him anywhere, in any state of health.

And it seemed clear to him that the sick man recognized
him
, though, weakened by fever, he could do no more than smile faintly, and extend a limp dry hand for Bagot to shake.

“My dear Roland,” Bagot said, deeply moved, “—your mother will be so happy when I cable her the good news!”

“YET I'M NOT
altogether certain that I
am
‘Roland Shrikesdale,'” the afflicted man told Bagot, fixing him with anxious eyes, and smiling that pale cringing smile Bagot remembered so well—which, in his opinion, now that he saw it once again, was one of Roland's most typical mannerisms, of which Roland himself was surely unaware. “For, you see, Mr. Bagot,
I can't remember.
I remember the roar of a landslide, and a sudden nightmare of rock, pebbles, dirt, sand—I remember the frenzied whinnying of
horses—the sensation of falling—being thrown—amid great terror and helplessness—as if God in His wrath had reached down to destroy my companion and me, for what offense I can't know. This horror I remember clearly, Mr. Bagot—but it has blotted out everything else.”

So the man Bagot knew to be Roland Shrikesdale repeated during their long railway trip east, speaking sometimes in a favored whisper from his invalid's bed, and sometimes in the high-pitched reedy voice Bagot recognized unmistakably as Roland's. When Roland's physician declared him well enough to leave his bed, the two men sat together companionably by a window of their private Pullman car—which was very like a luxury suite in a hotel of the first rank, equipped with every modern convenience, beautifully furnished and staffed by as many as five expertly trained Pullman Negroes. Bagot scrutinized his young charge with lawyerly tact, noting that Roland's eyes in direct sunshine weren't exactly brown but a steely mica-gray; his hair appeared coarser and a shade or so darker; the distinct mole near his left eye was gone, as a consequence, perhaps, of his injury. Yet the man was Roland—without a doubt. For who else might he be?

Indeed, the self-effacing young heir had always doubted himself since early boyhood, Bagot recalled. He'd been intimidated by his father and babied by his mother and rendered unfit to hold his own in even childish games and competitions like croquet and badminton. The prospect of a debutante ball had more than once rendered him unable to walk, let alone dance. It had been a fear of the dictatorial Elias that Roland would never prove “man enough” to marry, let alone sire a son to continue the noble Shrikesdale lineage by way of him; shortly before his death in 1901 Elias had spoken of breaking up Roland's inheritance and diverting much of it to his brother Stafford's three strapping boys, who would surely marry in time, and would
surely
sire any number of Shrikesdale sons. Yet a minor contretemps over another issue arose between Elias and Stafford, and the matter of the inheritance was abruptly dropped; and at Elias's death the immense fortune remained entire—weighing rather
heavily, Bagot suspected, on the inadequate shoulders of both Anna Emery and Roland.