Was that a bitter and sardonic smile on Eaton’s dying lips?
The Senator could not tell. But he did hear the one word, “No.”
The Senator was angry and astounded and incredulous. There had been such finality in that word, such strength.
” ‘No,’ Martin? After all he did to Mavis, and to you, out of cruelty and viciousness and hate?”
“Please go, Campion,” said Martin.
The Senator’s eyebrows rose again and stayed there. He studied the end of his glowing cigar. He smiled, reflecting. His big red mouth moved and twisted as if he were thinking of something very delicious.
“You will not help us, Martin?”
“No. No. That is all.”
The Senator sighed. He leaned back in the leather chair and contemplated the ceiling. “In my profession,” he said, “it is most necessary to know the secret hearts of people, their thoughts, their emotions, their desires. Mavis was a dear girl. But, she had her faults, her little perplexities, her small defects. Always, Martin, she was shielded by you, upheld by you, devotedly guarded by you. She was dearer to you than anything else in the world, above everything else in the world. You would never hear a word against her, not even from dear Flora, who is a paragon of a woman. Yes, yes, my ears are always open. I never forget anything. To you Mavis was an angel of light, to be worshiped and honored, her name kept inviolate. You would have died for Mavis.”
A steady hoarse breathing began to fill the closed and dusty room. “Yes,” said Martin Eaton, and again the living hand clenched on the desk. “It is true.”
“Not an ugly word must ever touch Mavis, mar her or dim her.”
“No,” said Martin. The breathing was louder and quicker.
The Senator sighed and shook his head. “Martin, it breaks my heart to say this, then. If you will not help us, I must, in my stern search for justice, bring Mavis’ name into public view, to public laughter, speculation. Calumny. And yours, also.”
The great shattered figure behind the desk stirred and shook as if a hand had seized it furiously. The dead hps parted, closed silently. The fallen eyes opened wide and blazed.
So, I have stirred up the wrecked bastard, thought the Senator with pleasure. He continued to shake his head, sighing. “You know how women gossip, Martin. My wife was the very close friend of your brother’s wife, Hilda Eaton. They endlessly confided in each other, and in no one else, and in letters. They were like sisters, closer than sisters. My wife was overcome with sorrow when Hilda died. Dear softhearted Henrietta. Dear gentle soul. I comforted her, as any good husband would. And then she told me.”
“What?” The word was a hard rasp.
“That,” said the Senator with an air of delicacy, “Mavis was your daughter, not your brother’s. That Mavis was the result of—er—adultery. I do not condemn you, dear old friend. But Hilda did resemble Marjorie Ferrier, did she not, and you always—admired—Marjorie Ferrier and had wanted to marry her. Let us be thankful that your brother died not knowing, and that you adopted Mavis, you and Flora, and made her your daughter openly, as well as naturally. It was a noble and loving thing, Martin, and I admire you for it. No, no. No one else living, except you and I, know the truth, and the truth is shut behind my lips and will never come forth. Unless you force me to it. I will not be denied, Martin.”
Now he looked at the crumbling man with a baleful light in his eyes, and his wide smile was evil.
It was as if all the last strength of Martin Eaton came to him violently. He said—and his voice was almost normal and loud—“You have no proof. I will sue you for libel.” The blaze was deep in his eyes and cold with hate.
“Ah, yes, but I do have proof, Martin. A politician, you will understand, garners all little matters which may be useful to him in the future. It does not matter how trivial. It may be a nugget later. So, I persuaded Henrietta to write it down for me, in her own handwriting, as a kind of ‘confession’ that she had withheld the truth for so long. Henrietta was a very virtuous soul. She had not been moved that Hilda had been infatuated with you, and that you loved her. There was some sternness in my dear Henrietta’s soul. She felt that you had ‘betrayed’ pretty Hilda, had seduced her from her husband’s side. Need I elaborate? So, I induced Henrietta to write down her own indignation over her beloved friend’s fate and the fact that she had not dared proclaim abroad the true paternity of her child. Henrietta did not blame Hilda. She did not blame the wronged husband. She did not blame Flora. She blamed only you”—and the Senator chuckled indulgently— “the seducer of the innocent, the breaker of a loving home, the despoiler.” The Senator laughed softly. ” ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ To my Henrietta that was a crime above murder, above all the other Commandments. Hilda had not committed adultery, no, not Henrietta’s friend! But you had forced yourself upon her. How Henrietta had come to that conclusion is a great mystery, but you know the chaste hearts of women,” and he signed unctuously. “They cannot believe that a good wife would betray her husband, no, not unless she was ‘forced.’”
He clasped his hands over his silk and patterned waistcoat and looked at the stricken doctor with an air of sadness and benignity. “Martin, unless you help us, tell us what you know, the name of Mavis will be darkened forever. You do not care about yourself, but you do care about Mavis. It is your choice: The memory of Mavis, or Jonathan Ferrier’s punishment.” He sat up in his chair. “Knowing what you do about him, how can you refuse to help us? How can you deny to Mavis the justice her soul must crave against her murderer? I cannot believe it! I cannot understand it!” He struck the desk with his meaty fist in outrage.
The doctor’s face was a gray portrait of extreme agony. His mouth had fallen open, and it was twisted, and his teeth could be seen, dimly glimmering in that dusky light. His panting was rough and deep in the room. He stared at the
Senator in his extremity of fear and hatred and despair. The Senator stared back, assuming severity and indignation.
Then, very slowly, the live hand opened a drawer and withdrew a piece of white linen, and laid it on the desk. The two men regarded it in silence. Finally, the doctor made
a
feeble motion toward it, and the Senator reached for it and took it in his hand. It was at once light and metallic, within its piece of linen. The Senator unrolled the cloth and found in his hand a curious tool or instrument. He bent forward to examine it more closely. A knife? A curved knife? A medical affair? Then he saw the name in a flowing scroll on the silver handle. Jonathan Ferrier.
“What is it?” he asked. He noticed that the edge was rusty and smeared with an old smear.
“Curette,” said Martin Eaton, as if expiring.
“Curette? What is that?”
“An instrument. Surgery. For emptying a woman’s womb.” The breathing was more discordant and shrill. “Ah!” exclaimed the Senator.
“Mavis’ blood. On it,” said Martin Eaton. “She brought it to me. Gave it to me. Before she died.”
He sank back in his chair and groaned. He rolled his head and his eyes stretched toward the ceiling. “It was used on her. Her blood. She brought it to me. He—he had put it down. She took it.” He pointed blindly at the cloth, and now the Senator recoiled. The cloth held old rusty stains.
“Good God,” said the Senator in a subdued voice. He had wanted proof but not one so horrible as this. He rerolled the curette gingerly. Then he said in a voice of genuine disgust, “And he used that on that helpless girl, to kill her and his child!” He had not believed it before, but he believed it now, or forced himself to believe it.
The live hand of Dr. Eaton darted to the cloth and the instrument and seized it and then thrust it back into, the drawer. The drawer was quickly locked. The two men looked at each other, the doctor panting as if he had struggled
a
long time with something formidable, the Senator with curiosity.
The Senator stood up with an air of satisfaction. “Thank you, Martin,” he said. “Please forgive me for pressing you. It was necessary, as I am sure you know now. Very necessary, for Mavis’ sake, and yours, and Hambledon’s. As soon as the witnesses can come, I will let you know, and they will wish to consult you personally.”
“Get out,” said Dr. Eaton, and he closed his eyes.
Smiling urbanely, the Senator left. He met no one in the lower hall but the maid, who respectfully led him to the door.
For many minutes after the Senator’s departure Martin Eaton sat in his chair, clenching and unclenching his right hand and staring into space. His heavy breathing subsided, but his mouth remained partly open. He began to look about his gloomy study as if he had never been here before and was examining everything. Then he said aloud, “Mavis. Mavis.” Again his eyes filled with moisture. Then he said, “Jon. Jon.”
He looked at his telephone, and he reached for it, and then he remembered the Senator and he snatched his hand away. But he continued to stare at it for a long time, a very long time, and his sick mind was turbulent.
Then he groaned. “Hilda. Marjorie. Marjorie!”
Jenny Heger wandered hesitantly onto the terrace where
Harald Ferrier was smoking and reading the morning paper. She looked at him with diffidence for some time before he became aware that she was there. Then he glanced up smiling, stood and laid aside his newspaper, and motioned her to a chair in the shining and golden heat of the morning. She shook her head and clasped her hands before her on her rough brown frock.
“I suppose,” she said in a very subdued voice, “you will never forgive me?”
“Jenny,” he said with the utmost gentleness, “I never held it against you. I was only sorry that you could think such things of me.” His hazel eyes sparkled largely on her with genuine love. “But I was a little—hurt. That’s why I refused to go with you to our lawyers and sign those contracts.
I
wanted to think, to get over my hurt.”
Jenny sighed and peeped at him shyly. “I’ve been thinking, too,” she said in that same uncertain voice. “Mama wasn’t very fair to you, and she realized it. So, I want to do what she should have done, and which she would have done if she had lived. The contract you made out—that wasn’t fair. So —so if you want to—we’ll go to our lawyers, and well divide the estate equally, and then you can—go. I don’t know just how large the estate is. I never gave it a thought before. But it must be quite a lot?”
“Yes, Jenny. Several millions of dollars, and still increasing from investments.” He still smiled at her, but he was alert. “Even divided, it would provide enough income for both of us, a rich income, for the rest of our lives, with the residual estate still intact for our own heirs.”
“I’m glad,” said Jenny with humility. “So you can go.
I
will stay here, on my father’s island, and I will be able to keep it up as he wanted. We can see our lawyers whenever you want to, Harald.”
He was elated, but he did not let it appear. He said, “Jenny, I want to talk to you. Please, Jenny, sit down for a minute. It won’t take long.”
She was too ashamed of her old prejudices and suspicions to refuse. So she sat on the edge of a wicker chair and colored a little, and looked at the rushing azure of the smiling river, and waited. The island was swept by a soft breeze, and held the scent of pine and cut grass and flowers and water. Jenny’s eyes were the eyes of a child, wondering, content, questing. The light wind ruffled the masses of her hanging black hair, which was caught back from her face by an untidy blue ribbon. Jenny, Jenny, thought Harald. He had never seen her before like this, quiet, without tenseness and hostility. Once he had thought her simple and without complexities, but now he knew that Jenny was a very elusive personality, and secret.
“Jenny,” he said, “will you listen to me for just a little, without jumping up and running away?”
She looked at him with that directness of hers. “I’ve finished with running away,” she said. “I’ve been running away all my life, and now it is over.”
He knew it was true. She had lost her shy fear of everything and everyone lately, and there was an air of proud reticence about her now. Her eyes did not dart off from anyone’s gaze any longer, nor did she blush very easily, nor did she flit away at the slightest sound of curiosity, or probing, or amusement. Jenny had become a woman. She had acquired courage, and Harald had no doubt that she could now face any hostility or ridicule with fortitude or deserved contempt. That part of her nature had been suppressed too long. Harold had even heard her laughing in the house and had seen her playing with kittens on the grass.
“I’m glad,” said Harald. “There was never any reason for you to run. When I was a child, I used to run, too. It was stupid.”
“Did you?” She smiled at him with interest.
“Yes, I did. I wanted my father to like me and to like my painting. I thought he was quite wonderful. But I found out he never had any real taste, such as my mother had. He liked stereotyped art, for he had no imagination to judge anything else. So, when I showed him my early attempts, he would look pained. He always had a way of looking pained, and very delicate and bruised. He was a silly man. My brother, Jon, never found that out. He thought Papa was the acme of everything, the final resort, and so he didn’t like our mother because she was onto Papa herself. Jon doesn’t like my paintings because Papa didn’t.”
Jenny frowned seriously. “That doesn’t sound like—Jon.”