The Green Jacket/Chapter 15
XV
It was nearly an hour before the new car passed swiftly down the driveway, with Mr. Mason on the back seat. Milly watched it out of sight and turned to the door. Margaret stood in it, looking at her significantly.
"Miss Annie says, will you please to come up now and see about her dress." She said it circumspectly and stepped a little into the room to make way for the parlor-maid, who was passing through the hall behind her.
"She'd like it if you'd come right away, please," she added. And the seamstress rose, dropping her knitting into the bag on her arm, and followed her into the hall.
"She's up in her room," said Margaret; "I'm going up, too." She moved aside and allowed the sewing-woman to precede her.
In the upper hallway, Mrs. Mason, waiting by the door of her room, a look of eager impatience in her face, reached out to Milly as she came up, and drew her swiftly along the hall toward the front of the house.
"Margaret will keep watch," she said. "Come in here."
She had entered the library, drawing the seamstress with her, and she closed both doors carefully behind them. Milly noted that the doors were of oak and highly polished and very thick. The bookcases built in to the room allowed a generous space between the outer and inner door.
The woman moved softly across the thick rug to the fire that blazed on the hearth.
"Sit down," she said quickly. She drew one of the large leather chairs nearer to the fire. But she did not seat herself in it, but stood with one hand on the mantel, looking down at Milly. . . . Her face was flushed and her eyes were filled with a little light of trembling happiness. The hand on the mantel seemed to press on it, as if to steady itself.
"Oh, I thought he would never go!" she said breathlessly. "And I have so much to say to you. I want to talk to you before Stephen comes. Think of it—to-morrow!" Her eyes, gazing deep into Milly's, had a strange look, almost of apprehension. "To-morrow!" she repeated softly.
"Yes. I am glad for you."
"Oh—you cannot know!" She spoke hurriedly. "No one can know—what it has been—day after day, month after month—and never to see him!"
Milly looked from the woman's flushed face to a picture that stood near it on the mantel. She made a little motion to it, with a look of question, and the woman turned to it swiftly. She took it in her hands and gazed at it, and handed it to her quickly.
"Can you imagine what it would be—to have a son like that and not see him—not even to know—!" She stopped abruptly and pressed her lips together.
Milly looked at her gently. "You need not hide from me," she said.
"No. I shall tell you everything," assented the woman. "I want to."
Milly studied the photograph a minute and placed it on the table beside her where she could see it as she leaned back in her chair. She would have the son's face before her while the mother told her story.
"He has an open face," she said half to herself.
The woman relaxed subtly to it. A little sob stole to her lips and broke through in quick words: "Oh, he is true! He is true— No one who knows him could doubt it!"
"No—I am sure of that. How long has he been away from home?"
"A year last month. Think of it—a whole year! And he had scarcely been away in his life. We were always together and always such friends. Even when he was a child we talked over our plans with him. We called him 'little brother.' There was no other child, you know." A shadow flitted in her face and she went on quickly. "Then we adopted Marian, and we were four children, instead of three. I think we kept younger than most fathers and mothers. . . . I was not old two years ago." She leaned against the mantel and her shoulders seemed to droop a little, as if she were suddenly tired.
"Sit down," said Milly, motioning to the chair across the hearth.
But she shook her head impatiently, annoyed to break the thread that was recalling the past to her. . . . "It was when Marian left us," she went on intently, "it was then everything changed, I think. My husband grew so strange to me—" She halted a minute and then went swiftly on, as if fearing to stop. "He shut me out of his life. He is a stranger to me—here in our home!" She moved her hand with a little gesture of fierceness.
"Are you sure the change came then—when she went away?" asked Milly.
She paused, as if the idea arrested her. Then she shook her head. "It was then I first knew." She seemed to hold it. . . . "Perhaps he was different before that—a little different. Everything was changed by the robbery—the detectives in and out. The home-sense was gone. Yes—our home was really broken up before she went." She said it consideringly. "Yet I always think of the change as having come the day she left. I remember so well that morning. My husband shut himself alone—in his room. All day I did not see him. Stephen had gone with Marian into town to see her off, and I was alone." She shuddered a little. "I had never been alone in my life. I do not mean physically alone, you understand—but in my heart. There had always been my mother—and then Oswald. But that day there was no one in the world. I thought my heart would break!" She looked at Milly and there was a strange passion in her eyes, as if the memory of the day haunted them.
"I know they say hearts do not break," she said. "But sometimes there is a pain—" Her hand clutched the black dress on her bosom. "Sometimes it is like a consuming flame here," she said swiftly.
"Then you do wrong to think of it," said Milly practically. "Sit down. I want you to tell me everything you can remember about the necklace—how your husband came to give it to you, and when it was—where—everything about it. There may be something important—some little thing that will give me the clew I want—if you can remember."
"If I can 'remember,’" repeated the woman with a wan smile. "I cannot forget!" She sank into the chair and covered her eyes a minute. Then she looked up wearily.
"You are right," she said, "in thinking there was something important in his giving it to me—though many people would not think it so. . . . But Oswald and I have always been close in spirit and we both knew his giving it meant something significant in our life—though we did not put it into words. . . . The emeralds were his words, I think. My husband chose to speak in jewels instead of words." She said it with a faint smile. "He is not an ordinary man. He is like a poet." She glanced about the walls crowded with books—every shelf and table filled with them.
"This room has been our life," she said slowly. "When we built the house he planned this room—for us both. It must be on this floor, he said, where I could come to it easily, instead of down below where other people have libraries. He wanted me to be always near him—and when he was away I sat here with my work, or my book. . . . Then the baby came, and my husband brought a new chair and placed it for me there where you are sitting. It was low and roomy, with little rockers, and I always nursed the baby in it and sat here and played with him. He was a part of our life in this room."
She sat staring before her—seeing the distant picture of the baby in the room, and Milly was touched with a strange wonder at the poetry and the life her words revealed. She wondered a little whether all men and women have this sealed fountain of poetry and longing, that only wells up to the light when some harsh blow breaks the seal and it gushes out.
They sat in silence, looking into the fire, and after a little the woman's voice went on:
"I was sitting there one day, with Stephen in my arms, crooning to him. He had been nursing, and had fallen asleep and I had not disturbed him. I was looking down at his little head. You know how soft and beautiful they are!" She cast a sweet look at the other woman. "And I was filled with happiness. Not thinking—but just looking down at him and happy—when I heard a step at the door. And then his voice, 'Don't move!' . . . He came over here to the firelight with something in his hands and held it up, and the glints in the stones struck out and startled me. He stood there playing with it and making it shine toward me and the child. It seemed as if the colors flashed back and forth across us when he turned it in his hands.
"He was like a child himself," she said with a sigh. Her voice had grown half-tender. . . . "And then at last he came over to me and stood above me and dropped it down on my neck—and the lowest link came down to my breast, close to the child's head. I could see it gleam there when I looked down. . . . But he said again, 'Don't move—don't touch!' and he went across and sat down and looked at us—a long time. Just looked, with his eyes half-closed—till it seemed as if I were wrapped in a flame of light!" The eyes in the gaunt face raised themselves slowly and looked at Milly.
"You have never been married?" she asked gently. And when Milly made a quiet, gray gesture of negation, the woman's eyes held her thoughtfully, as if her memory spoke in them.
"It is very wonderful—all that part of life!" she said. The words seemed remote and untouched, and she looked down at the slightly reddened knuckles in her lap and rubbed them a little and clasped her hands.
"I did not dream then that the jewels would one day make me suffer! I saw only my husband's eyes and felt the child's head against my breast. . . . And by and by he came over and knelt by me and gathered us to him almost fiercely, and whispered to, me that he would keep me always like that. Nothing should change—there should be only the child and me. He would give me every thing in the world. We would travel, and I should always be close to him. . . . He wanted nothing in the world but me—as I looked with the firelight shining on me and on the jewels!" She shivered a little. "I shall never forget the words—a woman could not forget them—with his low voice, and his eyes on me. They seemed to pierce me till I shrivelled under them. Something strange and unhappy seemed close to me. . . . I wanted to tear off the jewels, throw them away! But he would not let me. He kept whispering: 'You are mine—with my emeralds shining on you!’"
The woman gasped a little. She was leaning back in her chair, her face very pale. The tears were stealing down. Presently her lips moved and Milly bent to catch the half-breathed words:
"I have been punished," she said softly. "I have paid for my jewels—yes!" She brushed aside the tears and sat up. . . . "Even then I knew!" She was speaking almost fiercely. "I knew! I longed—for other children—to hear them running and playing with Stephen, in the hall out here and in the garden!" . . . She seemed to listen a moment to the voices that had not come to her. Then she went on quietly:
"I did not tell Oswald. It was not till long after, one day, I begged him to let me adopt a child, a little girl. So Marian came to us. She was only a little younger than Stephen and they were like brother and sister together. I used to sit for hours at a time—not moving or thinking—just listening to their voices at play."
She drew a long breath. "That is how the necklace came to me," she said in a different tone. . . . "I did not wear it often in society. It was far too expensive for us—more expensive than we had any right to. I often put it on at home when we were alone—or we held it in our hands here in the firelight and watched it sparkle and change. My husband justified his extravagance—he said it was an investment—instead of stocks and bonds. . . . I think we enjoyed it more than most people enjoy their stocks and bonds," she added with a little smile.
She sat looking dreamily into the fire. Perhaps the stones still gleamed there for her, faintly.
"And this necklace was stolen?" asked Milly quietly.
She started from her dream. "It disappeared—I told you."
Her eyes turned to the photograph on the table. She looked at it a long time intently—and the eyes of the picture seemed to return the look. . . . She glanced away from them with a little helpless gesture. . . . "There is something I have not told you," she said.
"Yes?" The word waited without comment. But the woman seemed to find it impossible to speak.
"It is—Stephen!" she said at last. She motioned to the picture. "But you must not think—you must not suspect—if I tell you. . . . Nobody can be certain!" She threw it out defensively.
"I shall not suspect," said Milly. "That is not my business. I only want to know the facts."
"But this fact does not mean what it seems to. That is why I have been so frightened and anxious." She leaned forward. "You know that Stephen was in a bank in town—before he left home?" She whispered the words.
"Yes. Was there trouble?"
She shook her head. "Nothing that was ever known. But my son overran his salary. He was extravagant—like his father," she added with a little sad smile. "He had debts and—he borrowed three thousand dollars from the bank." She said the last words quickly and stared at the detective as if challenging her thought.
Milly returned the look with a smile. "No, I am not thinking anything! Go on—who knew of his 'borrowing' the money?"
"Only me—and Marian," she said softly. She looked at her again, still with the little defensive glance.
"Did he tell you both of it?"
"He did not tell any one. He expected, of course, to return it in a day or two"
"Of course," assented Milly dryly.
"But Marian came to know. She called at the bank one night to drive him home. She came in quietly. At first she thought there was no one there. And then she saw Stephen—in the safe with his back to her—he was taking out some bills. She saw him crowd them down into his pocket and reach again—and then she turned and hurried out. She was in a panic that he might hear her or see her. But she got out safely. And in a few minutes she went back for him. . . . She said he looked so happy and innocent when she came back, that she thought it must be a bad dream. . . . She worried about it till she was nearly ill—and then at last she told me—" The mother sat staring before her.
"And then—?" said Milly.
She moved and lifted her eyes. "A week later," she said slowly, "the necklace disappeared."
They waited a minute in silence.
"And you believe Marian stole the necklace and got the money for your son?" said Milly.
The woman hesitated. "I have always believed she took it," she said. . . . There was a soft tapping sound somewhere in the room—and they started.
The woman cowered in her chair, looking behind her with frightened eyes.
"It is some one at the door," said Milly. She motioned to the inner door with its heavy polished surface, and the tapping came again—a little louder.
The color flashed back to the woman's face.
"It is Margaret!" she said swiftly. "She would not let any one else come to the door—except over her dead body!" She laughed a little tremulously and hurried to the door and opened it. "Luncheon, Margaret? Very well. We did not hear the gong. I will come."
She turned back to Milly in her chair by the hearth.
"Could you have your luncheon with me?" she asked almost pleadingly. "I dread to sit down there—alone—with all the memories I have called up!"
"You must be brave!" said Milly. She touched her arm, soothing her. "Be brave a little longer! The servants would think it strange for you to have the sewing-woman in to luncheon. Go and eat your luncheon, and then come to the sewing-room and we will get to work on the dress and make it fit you." She smoothed the wrinkles on the black shoulder gently. "We must not wait too long," she remarked, "or happiness may get ahead of us—and it will not need to be changed!"
The woman looked at her gratefully a minute. Then she left the room with quiet step.
When she had gone Milly took the photograph from the table. She studied it, holding it from her, and placed it on the mantel and looked at it again. The open, boyish face looked back to her, revealing nothing.