The Affair Next Door (39 page)

"My means came from my father, who, now it was too late, saw the
necessity of my improving myself. The amount of studying I did that
first year was amazing, but it was nothing to what I went through the
second, for my husband's letters had begun to fail me, and I was forced
to work in order to drown grief and keep myself from despair. Finally no
letters came at all, and when the second year was over, and I could at
least express myself correctly, I woke to the realization that, so far
as my husband was concerned, I had gone through all this labor for
nothing, and that unless by some fortunate chance I could light upon
some clue to his whereabouts in the great world beyond our little town,
I would be likely to pass the remainder of my days in widowhood and
desolation.

"My father dying at this time and leaving me a thousand dollars, I knew
no better way of spending it than in the hopeless search I have just
mentioned. Accordingly after his burial I started out on my travels,
gaining experience with every mile. I had not been away a week before I
realized what a folly I had indulged in in ever hoping to see John
Randolph back at my side. I saw the homes in which such men as he lived,
and met in cars and on steamboats the kind of people with whom he must
associate to be happy, and a gulf seemed to open between us which even
such love as mine would be powerless to bridge.

"But though hope thus sank in my breast, I did not lose my old ambition
of making myself as worthy of him as circumstances would permit. I read
only the best books and I allowed myself to become acquainted with only
the best people, and as I saw myself liked by such the awkwardness of my
manner gradually disappeared, and I began to feel that the day would
come when I should be universally recognized as a lady.

"Meantime I did not advance an iota in the object of my journey; and at
last, with every expectation gone of ever seeing my husband again, I
made my way to Toledo. Here I speedily found employment, and what was
better still to one of my ambitious tendencies, an opportunity to add to
the sum of my accomplishments a knowledge of French and music. The
French I learned from the family I lived with, and the music from a
professor in the same house whose love for his pet art was so great that
he found it simple happiness to impart it to one so greedy for
improvement as myself.

"Here, in course of time, I also learned type-writing, and it was for
the purpose of seeking employment in this capacity that I finally came
to New York. This was three months ago.

"I was in complete ignorance of the city when I entered it, and for a
day or two I wandered to and fro, searching for a suitable
lodging-house. It was while I was on my way to Mrs. Desberger's that I
saw advancing towards me a gentleman in whose air and manner I detected
a resemblance to the husband who some five years since had deserted me.
The shock was too much for my self-control. Quaking in every limb, I
stood awaiting his approach, and when he came up to me, and I saw by his
startled recognition of me that it was indeed he, I gave a loud cry and
threw myself upon his arm. The start he gave was nothing to the
frightful expression which crossed his face at this encounter, but I
thought both due to his surprise, though now I am convinced they had
their origin in the deepest and worst emotions of which a man is
capable.

"'John! John!' I cried, and could say no more, for the agitations of
five solitary, despairing years were choking me; but he was entirely
voiceless, stricken, I have no doubt, beyond any power of mine to
realize. How could I dream that in consideration, power, and prestige he
had advanced even more rapidly than myself, and that at this very moment
he was not only the idol of society, but on the verge of uniting himself
to a woman—I will not say of marrying her, for marry her he could not
while I lived—who would make him the envied possessor of millions. Such
fortune, such daring, yes and such depravity, were beyond the reach of
my imagination, and while I thought his pleasure less than mine, I did
not dream that my existence was a menace to all his hopes, and that
during this moment of speechlessness he was sounding his nature for
means to rid himself of me even at the cost of my life.

"His first movement was to push me away, but I clung to him all the
harder; at which his whole manner changed and he began to make futile
efforts to calm me and lead me away from the spot. Seeing that these
attempts were unavailing, he turned pale and raised his arm up
passionately, but speedily dropped it again, and casting glances this
way and that, broke suddenly into a loud laugh and became, as by the
touch of a magician's wand, my old lover again.

"'Why, Olive!' he cried; 'why, Olive! is it you? (Did I say my name was
Olive?) Happily met, my dear! I did not know what I had been missing all
these years, but now I know it was you. Will you come with me, or shall
I go home with you?'

"'I have no home,' said I, 'I have just come into town.'

"'Then I see but one alternative.' He smiled, and what a power there was
in his smile when he chose to exert it! 'You must come to my apartments;
are you willing?'

"'I am your wife,' I answered.

"He had taken me on his arm by this time and the recoil he made at these
words was quite perceptible; but his face still smiled, and I was too
mad with joy to be critical.

"'And a very pretty and charming wife you have become,' said he, drawing
me on for a few steps. Suddenly he paused, and I felt the old shadow
fall between us again. 'But your dress is very shabby,' he remarked.

"It was not; it was not near as shabby as the linen duster he himself
wore.

"'Is that rain?' he inquired, looking up as a drop or two fell.

"'Yes, it is raining.'

"'Very well, let us go into this store we are coming to and buy a
gossamer. That will cover up your gown. I cannot take you to my house
dressed as you are now.'

"Surprised, for I had thought my dress very neat and lady-like, but
never dreaming of questioning his taste any more than in the old days in
Michigan, I went with him into the shop he had pointed out and bought me
a gossamer, for which he paid. When he had helped me to put it on and
had tied my veil well over my face, he seemed more at his ease and gave
me his arm quite cheerfully.

"'Now,' said he, 'you look well, but how about the time when you will
have to take the gossamer off? I tell you what it is, my dear, you will
have to refit yourself entirely before I shall be satisfied.' And again
I saw him cast about him that furtive and inquiring look which would
have awakened more surprise in me than it did had I known that we were
in a part of the city where he ran but little chance of meeting any one
he knew.

"'This old duster I have on,' he suddenly laughed, 'is a very
appropriate companion to your gossamer,' and though I did not agree with
him, for my clothes were new, and his old and shabby, I laughed also and
never dreamed of evil.

"As this garment which so disfigured him that morning has been the
occasion of much false speculation on the part of those whose business
it was to inquire into the crime with which it is in a most unhappy way
connected, I may as well explain here and now why so fastidious a
gentleman as Randolph Stone came to wear it. The gentleman called Howard
Van Burnam was not the only person who visited the Van Burnam offices on
the morning preceding the murder. Randolph Stone was there also, but he
did not see the brothers, for finding them closeted together, he decided
not to interrupt them. As he was a frequent visitor there, his presence
created no remark nor was his departure noted. Descending the stairs
separating the offices from the street, he was about to leave the
building, when he noticed that the clouds looked ominous. Being dressed
for a luncheon with Miss Althorpe, he felt averse to getting wet, so he
stepped back into the adjoining hall and began groping for an umbrella
in a little closet under the stairs where he had once before found such
an article. While doing this he heard the younger Van Burnam descend and
go out, and realizing that he could now see Franklin without difficulty,
he was about to return up-stairs when he heard that gentleman also come
down and follow his brother into the street.

"His first impulse was to join him, but finding nothing but an old
duster in the closet, he gave up this intention, and putting on this
shabby but protecting garment, started for his apartments, little
realizing into what a course of duplicity and crime it was destined to
lead him. For to the wearing of this old duster on this especial
morning, innocent as the occasion was, I attribute John Randolph's
temptation to murder. Had he gone out without it, he would have taken
his usual course up Broadway and never met
me
; or even if he had taken
the same roundabout way to his apartments as that which led to our
encounter, he would never have dared, in his ordinary fine dress,
conspicuous as it made him, to have entered upon those measures, which,
as he is clever enough to know, lead to disgrace, if they do not end in
a felon's cell. It was John Randolph, then, or Randolph Stone, as he is
pleased to call himself in New York, and not Franklin Van Burnam (who
had doubtless proceeded in another direction) who came up to where
Howard had stood, saw the keys he had dropped, and put them in his own
pocket. It was as innocent an action as the donning of the duster, and
yet it was fraught with the worst consequences to himself and others.

"Being of the same height and complexion as Franklin Van Burnam, and
both gentlemen wearing at that time a moustache (my husband shaved his
off after the murder), the mistakes which arose out of this strange
equipment were but natural. Seen from the rear or in the semi-darkness
of a hotel-office they might look alike, though to me or to any one
studying them well, their faces are really very different.

"But to return. Leading me through streets of which I knew nothing, he
presently stopped before the entrance of a large hotel.

"'I tell you what, Olive,' said he, 'we had better go in here, take a
room, and send for such things as you require to make you look like a
lady.'

"As I had no objection to anything which kept me at his side, I told him
that whatever suited him suited me, and followed him quite eagerly into
the office. I did not know then that this hotel was a second-rate one,
not having had experience with the best, but if I had, I should not have
wondered at his choice, for there was nothing in his appearance, as I
have already intimated, or in his manners up to this point, to lead me
to think he was one of the city's great swells, and that it was only in
such an unfashionable house as this he would be likely to pass
unrecognized. How with his markedly handsome features and distinguished
bearing he managed so to carry himself as to look like a man of inferior
breeding, I can no more explain than I can the singular change which
took place in him when once he found himself in the midst of the crowd
which lounged about this office.

"From a man to attract all eyes he became at once a man to attract none,
and slouched and looked so ordinary that I stared at him in
astonishment, little thinking that he had assumed this manner as a
disguise. Seeing me at a loss, he spoke up quite peremptorily:

"'Let us keep our secret, Olive, till you can appear in the world
full-fledged. And look here, darling, won't you go to the desk and ask
for a room? I am no hand at any such business.'

"Confounded at a proposition so unexpected, but too much under the spell
of my feelings to dispute his wishes, I faltered out:

"'But supposing they ask me to register?'

"At which he gave me a look which recalled the old days in Michigan, and
quietly sneered:

"'Give them a fictitious name. You have learned to write by this time,
have you not?'

"Stung by his taunt, but more in love with him than ever, for his
momentary display of passion had made him look both masterful and
handsome, I went up to the desk to do his bidding.

"'A room!' said I; and when asked to write our names in the book that
lay before me, I put down the first that suggested itself. I wrote with
my gloves on, which was why the writing looked so queer that it was
taken for a disguised hand.

"This done, he rejoined me, and we went up-stairs, and I was too happy
to be in his company again to wonder at his peculiarities or weigh the
consequences of the implicit confidence I accorded him. I was
desperately in love once more, and entered into every plan he proposed
without a thought beyond the joyous present. He was so handsome without
his hat; and when after some short delay he threw aside the duster, I
felt myself for the first time in my life in the presence of a finished
gentleman. Then his manner was so changed. He was so like his oldest and
best self, so dangerously like what he was in those long vanished hours
under the pines in my sand-swept home on the shores of Lake Michigan.
That he faltered at times and sank into strange spells of silence which
had something in them that made my breath come fitfully, did not awaken
my apprehension or rouse in me more than a passing curiosity. I thought
he regretted the past, and when, after one such pause in our
conversation, he drew out of his pocket a couple of keys tied together
with a string, and surveyed the card attached to them with a strange
look, easily enough to be understood by me now, I only laughed at his
abstraction, and indulged in a fresh caress to make him more mindful of
my presence.

"These keys were the ones which Mrs. Van Burnam's husband had dropped,
and which he had picked up before meeting me; and after he had put them
back into his pocket he became more talkative than before, and more
systematically lover-like. I think he had not seen his way clearly till
this moment, the dark and dreadful way which was to end, as he supposed,
in my death.