Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
Back to the window again and the pleasant game that was so fascinating. There was only one unpleasant occurrence, just before closing time, when the girl Anita came in to make a deposit and looked at him with her clear eyes. A distant, formal recognition she gave him, but no more, and again he felt her likeness to Bessie, poor Bessie Chapparelle, with her white face against his shoulder as he carried her into the hospital.
It swept over him with a sickening thud: Bessie was dead. Why hadn’t he gone back to Bessie Chapparelle long ago? This girl Anita had that same sweet reserve about her that Bessie had put between himself and her while they were driving. He had wanted to breakdown that reserve, but he liked her for it. He could see that Anita would be a good girl to know. She would be somewhat like Bessie, perhaps. But because of Bessie he shrank from even looking at her. And somehow that odd fancy that she could look through him, that she might even read that he had killed a girl, took more and more possession of his mind. He must get away from this town!
But Mr. Harper came to him just at closing time, and said he wanted to take him home to dinner that night, that there were one or two matters he wanted to talk over with him, and besides his wife and daughters were most anxious to meet him. They would leave the bank around five o’clock. His duties would be about over for the day then, and they would take a little drive around the town and vicinity of Marlborough, if that was agreeable to the young man. Then they would drive to the Harper home and dine and spend the evening.
There was nothing to do but assent, of course, but his mind was so troubled trying to think how to get away that he scarcely paid heed to the routine of his work, which they were trying to teach him, and once or twice made bad calculations which he knew must have made them wonder that he did not know better. He saw they were being very nice to him, but he fancied a look of surprise passed over their faces that he had not understood more quickly.
The day’s agenda was carried out without a break. He actually went through that entire day, ride and dinner and evening and all, and was returned to Mrs. Summers’ house late that night andushered to the very door, which she herself opened for him, so that there was no instant in which he could have gotten away unnoticed.
As he stood by the bedroom window in the soft light of the little bed lamp and looked out into the pleasant street once more, as he had done twenty-four long hours before, he was amazed at the supervision that had followed him from early morning to late at night. It seemed almost uncanny. He was beginning to wonder if perhaps there was some secret reason for it, that he should be caught in this maze of deceit, and then to add this also to his already-heavy offense. Could it be possible that a kind Providence, or some other great unseen Power, if there was such a thing in the universe, had provided this way of escape from his terrible situation and prepared a new place and a new name for his wayward self to begin again?
He looked around the pleasant, friendly little room that seemed already to have somehow become his, to the deep easy chair with the soft light falling on a magazine laid close at hand, to the comfortable white bed, with its sheets turned down again, ready for his entrance, and suddenly his heart failed him. How could he go out into the world again and hide away from men when here was this home and this place in the world awaiting him? He would never find another place where everything would be so easy to fit into. He might stay at least until something was heard of the other fellow. He would take pains to inquire about that wreck. He would profess to be anxious about some of hisfellow passengers, and they would talk, and he would find out a lot of things—where the other fellow really lived—and perhaps there would be a way of tracing him. If he had really died, the way would be clear for him. The man seemed to have come from a distance, from the way they spoke of his trains, and his trunk coming on ahead. It was likely there would be a good chance of his never being found out. Why not take the chance?
Now, Murray Van Rensselaer had been taking chances all his life. He loved chances. He was a born gambler in life, and if it had not been for the white face of Bessie Chapparelle that haunted him everywhere he turned and suddenly appeared to him out of the most unexpected thoughts and occurrences, he would have just delighted in entering into this situation and seeing if he could get away with it. The little white haunting face spoiled everything for him everywhere. There had never been anything in his life before that really took the fun and the excitement out of living.
There was one other occurrence of the day that set its searing touch upon his troubled mind, and that was when he had been returning from lunch. He had lifted his eyes to the wall beyond the table where patrons were standing writing checks and had seen a large sign hanging on that wall beyond the table in full sight of all who entered the bank, bearing the picture of a young man, and underneath the picture the words, in large letters, $5,000 R
EWARD—
He read no more. To his distorted vision the picture seemed to be one of himself. Yet he was not near enough to see it, and hedared not go nearer. It had been like a nemesis staring him in the face all the afternoon as he worked away at the game of money, every time he looked up, and tried not to see the sign upon the wall with the face and the words upon it, yet always saw them.
He thought of the sign now as he stood by the window and looked out, thinking how he could get across that tin roof silently, and down to the ground by way of the rose trellis.
Then the thought presented itself that perhaps, after all, he was safer there, in the bank, even if it proved to be his own picture staring across at him, than he would be out in the world trying to run away from people who were hunting for him and wanting to get that reward. No one would think of looking for that face behind the teller’s window. He was bearing an honored name, and behind that name he was safe. He must stay. That is, unless the other man turned up, and then—? Well, then it would be time enough to decide what to do. At least his situation could be no worse than it was now. He would go to bed and to sleep like other people, and tomorrow he would get up and go to the bank and play that enticing game of money again and see if he could get away with it all. At least it would keep his mind occupied, so that he would not always have to see Bessie Chapparelle lying huddled beneath that overturned car.
He turned from the window and looked toward the tempting bed again. He was not used to resisting temptations. It had been his habit always to do exactly as he pleased, no matter what the consequences. Let the consequences take care of themselves whenthey had arrived. Ten to one they would never arrive. It had been his experience that if you kept enough things going, there was no room for consequences. Habit is a tremendous power. Even in the face of a possible arrest for murder, it swayed him now. And he was tired—deadly tired. The excitement of the day, added to the excitement of the days that had gone before, had exhausted him. Add to that the fact that he had been without stimulants of any kind, unless you could call coffee a stimulant. It was a strange thing, all these people who did not drink and did not approve of smoking. How did they get that way?
He had thought that as soon as he got out in the world again somehow he would manage to get a pack of cigarettes. But at the breakfast table Mrs. Summers had told him how the one thing that had held her back at first from being ready to take him in was that she hated smoking in her house, but when Mr. Harper had boasted that he was a young man who never smoked, that decided her.
“And he was so pleased about it,” she added. “You know, though he smokes himself, he said it was a sign of great strength of character in you that you had gone all through the war even without smoking, and you were said not to be a sissy, either.”
He had paid little heed to her words while he was eating breakfast, because his mind was engrossed with how he could get away, but down at the bank Mr. Harper, at noon, lighting his cigar, looked at him apologetically and said: “I know you don’t smoke, Murray, but I hope you’ll pardon us older fellows whobegan too young in life to cut it out now. I admire your strength tremendously.”
He had opened his mouth to disclaim any such strength, to say that they had been misinformed, for his whole system was crying out for the comfort of a smoke, but a distraction suddenly occurred, and caution held him back from contradicting it later. Besides, the entire company seemed to have heard it about him that he did not smoke, and he dared not attempt to invent a story that would show they were mistaken. If he was supposed to be that kind of young man, better let it stand. He could all the more easily slip away unobserved without their immediate alarm.
So now in the quiet of his own room, he longed fiercely for a smoke. But he had not a cent in his pocket. There had not been a chance for an instant all day when he could have purchased cigarettes unobserved, and if he had them in his hand he would not dare to smoke there in Mrs. Summers’ house. She hated it. She would smell it. She would think him a hypocrite. Somehow he did not want Mrs. Summers to think ill of him. Of course he was a hypocrite, but somehow he didn’t want her to know it. She had been kind to him, and he liked her. She was what seemed to him like a real mother, and he reverenced her. If he stayed and enjoyed her home and the position which he was supposed to fill, he would also have to live up to the character he was supposed to be, and that would include not smoking, even when he got a chance and the money to purchase the smokes. Could he stand it? Was it worth the trouble?
And yet when he came to think about it, was not that perhaps the very best disguise he could have, not to smoke? He had been an inveterate smoker. Everybody who knew him knew that. If he was made over into a new man, the old man in him unrecognizable, he must seek to obliterate all signs of the old man. Well, could he do it?
He had settled down into the big chair to think, to decide what to do, and suddenly a great drowsiness overtook him. With a quick impulse of old habit he got up and began to undress without more protest. He would have another good night’s rest before he did anything about it anyway. He could not run far with sleep like this in possession of his faculties. And in three minutes he snapped out the light and was in bed. At least he was probably safe till morning. The man Murray could not very well turn up at that time of night.
Chapter 16
M
urray wondered again the next morning when Warren stepped in with a note from Mr. Harper while he was eating his breakfast, and insisted on waiting and walking down to the bank with him. It did seem uncanny. Were all these people in collusion somehow to prevent his being left alone an instant?
It would have been a startling thought to him had someone suggested that each one was working out the divine will for his good, and that though he might flee to the uttermost part of the earth, even there an all-seeing care would be about him, reaching to draw him to a God he had never known.
Murray liked Warren. He seemed quite companionable. He wondered if he played golf or had a car. But it annoyed him to be under such continual supervision. Although he had about decided to remain in Marlborough for the present, at least until he got his first week’s pay, if that were possible, still he did not like the feelingthat he was being forced to do this. He cast about in his mind for an excuse that would leave him free, but Warren was so altogether genial that there seemed nothing else to do but make the best of it. Surely they would not have lunch parties on the roof of the bank building every day of the week. There would certainly come a letup sometime.
So they walked downtown together, and Murray discovered that Warren was married and lived in a little cottage two blocks above Mrs. Summers. Warren said they wanted him to come to dinner some night just as soon as Elizabeth got back. Elizabeth was away in Vermont, visiting her mother.
Elizabeth! Would he never get away from thoughts of Bessie Chapparelle?
Warren confided in Murray that he was saving for a car, just a little coupe—he couldn’t afford anything else yet—but it would be nice for Elizabeth to take the baby out in. There was a nice, eager, domestic air about him that was different from anything Murray had experienced among his young men friends, even the married ones. He did not remember that any of them had babies, or if they had they did not speak about them. They were tucked away somewhere with their nurses out of sight till they should be old enough to burst upon the world full-fledged in athletics or society. There was something pleasant about the thought of a girl taking her baby out for a ride in a little coupe, even if it was a cheap one. And a cottage! He had never been to dinner at a cottage. It occurred to him that Bessie would have been the kind of motherwho would have taken her baby out for a ride. Bessie! Oh Bessie! Why had he not thought of Bessie before and kept in touch with her? But when he did find her, he had killed her! He had thought this terrible depression at remembrance of her would pass away in a few days, but it did not. It only grew worse! Someday it might drive him mad! This was no way to begin a day!
But he entered the bank committed to take a hike with Warren that afternoon after closing time, and Warren was to come home to dinner that night with him. Mrs. Summers had asked him at the breakfast table. So the pleasant ties that were binding him to Marlborough multiplied and weakened his purpose of leaving, and from day to day he held on, each day thinking to go the next. If he had had money, even a little, or any sense of where he might go, it would have been different, perhaps, for ever over him hung the fear of the return of the real Murray, though each day, no, each hour that passed in security weakened his realization of it and at times almost obliterated the thought of it as a possibility.
Then there began to happen the strangest things that he had to do, things utterly alien to all of his former life.