The Mayor's Wife (Ladies' Home Journal serial)/Part 1
“Thus Did I First See Mrs. Packard”
Chapter I
I PRIDE myself upon my self-control, but I could not forbear casting Miss Davies a pleading look when she entered the room and faced us with that air of importance she invariably assumes when she has an unusually good position to offer.
I needed a position, needed it badly, while the others
But her eyes are on our faces; she is scanning us all with that close and calculating gaze which lets nothing escape. She has passed me by—my heart goes down—down, when suddenly her look returns and she singles me out:
“Miss Saunders!”
There is a rustle about me; five disappointed girls sink back into their seats as I quickly rise and follow Miss Davies out.
In the hall she faces me with these words:
“You are discreet, and you evidently desire a position. You will find a gentleman in my sitting-room. If you come to terms with him, well and good. If not, I shall expect you to forget all about him and his errand the moment you leave his presence. You understand me?”
“I think so,” I replied, meeting her steady look with one equally composed. Part of my strength—and I think I have some strength—lies in the fact that I am quietest when most deeply roused. “I am not to talk, whatever the outcome.”
“Not even to me,” she emphasized.
Stirred still further, and therefore even more outwardly calm than before, I stopped her as she was moving on and ventured a single query:
“This position—involving secrecy—is it one you would advise me to take even if I did not stand in need of it so badly?”
“Yes. The difficulties will not be great to a discreet person. It is a first-class opportunity.”
“Thank you,” was my abrupt but grateful rejoinder; and obeying her silent gesture I opened the door of the sitting-room and passed in.
The tall figure of a man standing at one of the windows turned quickly at the sound of my step and came forward. Instantly whatever doubt I may have felt concerning the nature of the work about to be proposed to me yielded to the certainty that, however much it might involve of the strange and difficult, the man whose mission it was to seek my aid was one to rouse confidence.
“She Fell at My Feet, Stricken and Senseless”
He was also a handsome man, or—no, I will not go so far as that, for I have learned since that he was not really that, only a man in whom the lines of form and visage were fine enough not to interfere with the impression made by his strong nature and intense vitality. A man to sway women and also quite capable of moving men (this was evident at a glance), but a man under a cloud just at present—a very heavy cloud which both irked and perplexed him.
Pausing in the middle of the room he surveyed me closely for an instant before speaking. Did I impress him as favorably as he did me? I soon had reason to thin so, for the nervous trembling of his hands ceased after the first moment or two of silent scrutiny, and I was sure I caught the note of hope in his voice as he courteously remarked:
“You are seeking a place, young lady. Do you think you can fill the one I have to offer? It has its difficulties, but it is not an onerous one. It is that of companion to my wife.”
I bowed; possibly I smiled.
“I should be very glad to try such a situation,” I replied.
A look ot relief, so vivid that it startled me, altered at once the whole character of his countenance; and perceiving how intense was the power and fascination underlying his quiet exterior I asked myself who and what this man was: no ordinary personage, I was sure, but who? Had Miss Davies purposely withheld his name? I began to think so.
“I have had some experience” I was proceeding.
But he waved that consideration aside, with a change back to his former gloomy aspect and a careful glance at the door which did not escape me.
“It is not experience which is so much needed as—discretion!”
Again that word.
“The case is not a common one, or rather”—he caught himself up quickly—“the circumstances are not. My wife is well, but—she is not happy. She is very unhappy, deeply, unaccountably so, and I do not know why.”
Anxious to watch the effect of these words he paused a moment, then added fervently:
“Would to God I did!”
The meaning, the deep meaning, in his tone if not in the adjuration itself, was undeniable; but my old habit of self-control stood me in good stead and I remained silent and watchful, weighing every look and word.
“A week ago she was the lightest-hearted woman in town, the happiest wife, the merriest mother. To-day she is a mere wreck of her former self—pallid, drawn, almost speechless; yet she is not ill. She will not acknowledge to an ache or a pain; will not even admit that any change has taken place in her. But you have only to see her. And I am as ignorant of the cause of it all—as you are!” he said.
Still I remained silent, waiting, watchful.
“I have talked with her physician. He says there is something serious the matter with her, but that it is not in any respect physical, and advises me to find out what is on her mind. As if that had not been my first care! I have also consulted her most intimate friends—all who know her well, but they can give me no clew to her distress. They see the difference in her but cannot tell the cause. And I am obliged to go away and leave her in this state. For two weeks, three weeks now, my movements will be very uncertain. I am at the mercy of the State Committee. I”
“Miss Davies has not told me your name,” I interpolated.
He stared, shook himself together, and simply said:
“I am Henry Packard.”
The city's Mayor! and not only that—the running candidate for Governor. I knew him well by name, even if I did not know, or rather had not recognized, his face.
“I beg pardon,” I somewhat tremulously began—but he waved the coming apology aside as easily as he had my first attempt at ingratiation. In fact he appeared to be impatient of every unnecessary word.
This I could, in a dim sort of way, understand. He was at the crisis of his fate, and so was his party. For several years a struggle had gone on between the two nearly matched elements in this Western city which so far had resulted in securing him two terms of office—possibly because his character appealed to men of all grades and varying convictions. But the opposite party was very strong in the State, and the question as to whether he could carry his ticket against such odds was one yet to be tested. Forcible as a speaker, he was expected to reap hundreds of votes from the mixed elements that invariably thronged to hear him, and, ignorant as I necessarily was of the exigencies of such a campaign, I knew that not only his own ambition, but the hopes of his party as well, depended on the speeches he had been booked to make in all parts of the State. And now, three weeks before election, while every opposing force was seething to the surface, this trouble had come upon him! A mystery in his home and threatened death in his heart! For he loved his wife—that was apparent to me from the first—loved her to idolatry, as such men sometimes do love, often to their own undoing.
All this was the thought of an instant. Meanwhile he had been studying me well.
“You understand my position,” he commented. “To-morrow night I speak in C, Thursday in R, while she” With an effort he pulled himself together. “Miss”
“Saunders,” I put in.
“Miss Saunders, I cannot leave her alone in the house. Some one must be there to guard and”
“Has she no mother?” I suggested in the pause he made.
“She has no living relatives, and mine are uncongenial to her.”
This to save another question.
“I cannot ask any of them to stay with her,” he pursued firmly and decisively. “She would not consent to it. Nor can I ask any of her friends. That she does not wish either. But I can hire her a companion. That she would regard as a kindness, if the lady chosen should prove to be one of those rare beings who carry comfort in their looks without obtruding their services or displaying the extent of their interest.”
Here his eyes again read my face.
“Will you accept the position?” he asked. “We have one little child. You will have no charge of her save as you may wish to make use of her in reaching the mother.”
The hint conveyed in the last phrase gave me courage to say:
“You wish me to reach her?”
“With comfort,” said he.
“And if in doing so I learn her trouble?”
“You will win my eternal gratitude.”
My head rose; I began to feel that my next step must strike solid ground.
“In other words—to be quite honest—you wish me to learn her trouble if I can?”
“I believe you can be trusted to do so.”
“And then to reveal it to you?”
“If your sense of duty permits—which I think it will.”
I might have uttered in reply, “A spy's duty!” but the high-mindedness of his look forbade. Whatever humiliation his wishes put upon me there could be no question of the uprightness a his motives.
I ventured one more question:
“How far shall I feel myself at liberty to go?”
“As far as your judgment approves and circumstances seem to warrant. I know that you will come upon nothing dishonorable to her or detrimental to our relations as husband and wife in this secret which is destroying our happiness. Her affection for me is undoubted, but something—God knows what—has laid waste her life. To find and annihilate that something is my first and foremost duty. It does not fit well with those duties pressing upon me from the political field. That is why I have called in help. That is why I have called in you.”
The emphasis was delicately but sincerely given. It struck my heart and entered it. Perhaps he had calculated upon this.
Answering with a smile, I waited patiently while he talked terms and other equally necessary details, then waving all these considerations aside, in much of his own grand manner, I made this remark:
“If your wife likes me, which very possibly she may fail to do, I shall have a few questions to ask you I settle down to my duties. Will you see that an opportunity is given me for doing this?”
His assent was as frank as all the rest, and the next moment he left the room.
As he passed out I heard him remark to Miss Davies:
“I expect Miss Saunders at my house before nightfall.”
Chapter II
I KNEW all the current gossip about Mrs. Packard before I had parted with Miss Davies. Her story was a simple one. Bred in the West, she had come, immediately after her mother's death, to live with that mother's brother in C. In doing this she had walked into a fortune. Her uncle was a rich man, and when he died, which was about a year after her marriage with Mr. Packard, she found herself the recipient of an enormous legacy. She was, therefore, a woman of independent means, an advantage which, added to personal attractions of a high order, and manners at once dignified and winning, caused her to be universally regarded as a woman greatly to be envied by all who appreciated a well-founded popularity.
The day was declining in a pomp of color. As Mayor Packard opened the door of the library to usher me in, a ray of vivid sunlight, shooting over our shoulders from a window in our rear, poured its searching radiance on the figure of a woman sitting alone before an empty fireplace. Thus did I first see Mrs. Packard.
But there was no glow in her: only darkness. As she rose with slow reluctance and forced herself to look our way I decided instantly that her husband had not magnified her condition. Emotion of no ordinary nature disturbed the lines of her countenance and robbed her naturally fine figure of a goodly portion of its dignity and grace; and though she immediately controlled herself and assumed the imposing aspect of a highly-trained woman ready, if not eager, to welcome an intruding guest, I could not easily forget that sudden drawn look about her mouth and eyes which in the first instant of our meeting had distorted features naturally harmonious and beautifully serene.
I am sure that her husband had observed it also, for his voice trembled slightly as he observed:
“I have brought you a companion, Barbara—one whose business and pleasure it will be to remain with you while I am away making speeches. Do you not see reason for thanking me?” This last question he pointed with a glance in my direction, which drew her attention and caused her to give me a kindly look.
I met her eyes fairly. They were large and gray and meant for smiling; eyes that with a happy heart behind them would illumine her own beauty and create joy in those upon whom they were leveled. But to-day nothing but question lived in their dark and uneasy depths.
“I think—I am sure, that my thanks are due you,” she courteously replied, with a quick turn toward her husband, expressive of confidence and, as I thought, love. “I dreaded being left alone.”
He drew a deep breath of relief; we all did; then we talked a little, atter which Mayor Packard found some excuse for taking me from the room.
“Now for the talk you requested,” said he; and preceding me down the hall he led me into his study.
I noted one thing, and one thing only, on entering this place. That was the presence of a young man who sat at a distant table reading and making notes. But as Mayor Packard took no notice of him, knowing and expecting him to be there, no doubt, I, with pardonable confusion, withdrew my eyes from the handsomest face I had ever seen, and noting that my employer had stopped before a small table holding a typewriter, I took my place at his side, without knowing very well what this move meant or what he expected me to do there.
I was not long left in doubt. With a gesture toward the typewriter he asked me if I was accustomed to its use, and when I acknowledged to some sort of acquaintance with it he drew an unanswered letter from a pile on the table and requested me to copy it as a sample.
I immediately sat down before the typewriter. I was in something of a maze, but felt that I must follow his lead. As I proceeded to insert the paper and lay out the copy to hand he crossed over to the young man at the other end of the room and began a conversation which ended in some trivial demand that sent the young man from the room. The latter had no sooner closed the door behind him than Mayor Packard returned to my side.
“Keep on with your work, and never mind mistakes,” said he. “What I want is to hear the questions you told me to expect from you if you stayed.”
My hands trembled from the machine, and I was about to turn and give my full thought to what I had to say. But pride checked the impulse. And I went on with the letter.
“When,” I asked, “did you first see the change in Mrs. Packard?”
“On Tuesday afternoon at about this time.”
“Had she been out that day?”
“Yes, I think she told me later that she had been out.”
“Do you know where?”
“To some concert, I believe.”
“Have you reason to think,” I now demanded, “that she brought her unhappiness in with her when she returned from that concert?”
“No; for when I returned home myself, as I did earlier than usual that night, I heard her laughing with the child in the nursery. It was afterward, some few minutes afterward, that I came upon her sitting in such a daze of misery that she did not recognize me when I spoke to her. I thought it a passing mood at the time—she is a sensitive woman, and she had been reading; I saw the book lying on the floor at her side—but when, having recovered from her dejection, a dejection which she would neither acknowledge nor explain, she accompanied me out to dinner, she showed the same and even more feeling on our return, shrinking unaccountably from leaving the carriage, and showing, not only in this way but in others as well, a very evident distaste to reënter her own house. Now, whatever hold I still retain upon her is of so slight a nature that I am afraid every day that she will leave me.”
“Leave you!”
My fingers paused; my astonishment had got the better of me.
“Yes; it is as bad as that. Yet she loves me—really and truly loves me. That is the mystery of it. More than this, her very heart-strings are tied up in those of her child.”
“Mayor Packard”—I had resumed work—“was any letter delivered to her that day?”
“That I cannot say.”
Fact one for me to establish.
“The wives of men like you—men much before the world—men in the thick of strife, social and political, often receive letters of a very threatening character.”
“She would have shown me any such if only to put me on my guard. She is physically a very brave woman.”
“These letters sometimes assume the shape of calumny. Your character may have been attacked.“”
“She believes in my character and would have given me an opportunity to vindicate myself. I have every confidence in my wife's sense of justice.”
I experienced a thrill of admiration for the appreciation he evinced in those words. Yet I pursued the subject resolutely, or rather, I asked:
“Have you an enemy, Mayor Packard? Any real and downright enemy capable of a deep and serious attempt at destroying your happiness?”
“None that I know of, Miss Saunders. I have political enemies, of course; but personal ones—wretches willing to stab me in my home-life and affections, that I cannot believe.”
“Who constitute your household? How many servants do you keep and how long have they been with you?”
“Now you exact details with which only Mrs. Packard is conversant. I do not interest myself much in matters purely domestic, and Mrs. Packard spares me. You will have to observe the servants yourself.”
I made another note in my mind while inquiring:
“Who is the young man who was here just now? He has an uncommon face.”
“A handsome one, do you mean?”
“Yes, and—well, he is what I should call distinctively clever.”
“He is clever. He is my secretary. He helps me in my increased duties; has in a way charge of my campaign; reads, sorts and sometimes answers my letters. Just now he is arranging my speeches; fitting them to the needs of the several audiences I shall be called upon to address.”
“Do you like him?—the man I mean, not his work.”
“Well—yes. Indeed, I never thought whether I did or not. He is very good company, or would have been if in the week he has been in the house I had been in better mood to enjoy him.”
“He has been here a week?”
“Yes, or almost.”
“Came on last Tuesday, didn't he?”
“Yes, I believe that was the day.”
“Toward afternoon?”
“No; he came early—soon after breakfast, in fact.'
“Does your wife like him?”
His Honor gave a start, flushed, and answered without anger but with a good deal of pride:
“I doubt if Mrs. Packard more than knows of his presence. She does not come to this room.”
“And he does not sit at your table?”
“No; I must have some few minutes in the day free from the suggestion of politics. Mr. Steele can safely be left out of our discussion.”
The note I made at this was very emphatic.
“You should know,” said I; then quickly, “Tuesday was the day Mrs. Packard first showed the change you observe in her?”
“Yes, I think so; but that is a coincidence only. She takes no interest in this young man; scarcely noticed him when I introduced him; just bowed to him over her shoulder; she was fastening on our little one's cap. Usually she is extremely courteous to strangers, but she was abstracted, positively abstracted, at that moment. I wondered at it, for he usually makes a stir where he goes. But my wife cares little for beauty in a man; I doubt if she noticed his looks at all. She did not catch his name, I remember.”
“How's that?”
“Later she asked me what it was.”
“Tell me about that, Mr. Packard.”
“It was while we were out. Chance threw us together, and to fill up the moment she asked the name of the young man I had brought into the library that morning. I told her and explained his position and the long training he had had in local politics. She listened, but not as closely as she did to the music. Oh, she takes no interest in him. I wish she did; his stories might amuse her.”
I did not pursue the subject. Taking out the letter I had been writing I handed it to him, with the remark:
“My copy is finished, sir.”
heading|Chapter III|3|c|normal|mb1}} I SPENT that evening alone. Mrs. Packard went to the theatre with friends, and Mayor Packard attended a conference of politicians. I felt the loneliness but busied myself trying to sift the impressions made upon me by the different members of the household. It consisted, so far as my present observation went, of seven persons: the three principals and four servants. Of the latter I had seen two: the old butler, and a brisk housemaid of the name of Ellen. I liked Ellen; she looked equally alive and trustworthy. Of the butler I could not say as much. He struck me as secretive. Also, he manifested from the bed first a certain antagonism to myself.
Pondering this and other subjects, I remained in the cozy little room which had been provided for me at the end of an upper hall till the clock verging on to twelve told me that it was nearly time for Mrs. Packard's return.
Hardly knowing my duties as yet, or what she might expect of me, I kept my door open, meaning to speak to her when she came in. The thought had crossed me that she might not return home at all, but remain away with her friends. Some fear of this kind had been in Mr. Packard's mind and naturally found lodgment in mine. I was, therefore, much relieved when sharp on the stroke of midnight I heard the front door-bell ring, followed by the sound of her voice speaking to the old butler. I thought its tone more cheerful than before she went out. At all events, her face had a natural look when, after a few minutes' delay, she came upstairs and stepped into the nursery—a room on the same floor as mine, but nearer the stair-head.
From what impulse did I put out my light? I think now, on looking back, that I hoped to catch a better glimpse of her face when she came out again, and so be in a position to judge whether her anxiety or secret distress were in any special way connected with her child. But I forgot the child and any motive of this kind which I may have had when Mrs. Packard did reappear, for simultaneously with her presence again in the hall there rang up from some place below a laugh, so loud and derisive, and of so threatening a tone, that Mrs. Packard reeled with the shock, and I myself gave evidences of surprise in spite of my pride and usual impassibility.
This, had it been all, would not be worth the comment. But it was not all. Mrs. Packard did not recover from the shock as I expected her to. Her fine figure straightened itself, it is true, but only to sink again lower and lower till she clung crouching to the stair-rail at which she had caught for support, while her eyes moved till they met mine with that unseeing and glassy stare which speaks of a soul-piercing terror—not fear in any ordinary sense, but terror which lays bare the soul and allows one to see into depths which .
But here my compassion drove me into action. Advancing quietly, I caught at her wrap, which was falling from her shoulders. She grasped my hand as I did so.
“Did you hear that laugh?” she panted. “Whose was it? Who is downstairs?”
“Nixon let you in,“ I suggested. “I do not know of there being any one else below.”
“Would you—would you mind”—how hard she strove to show only the indignant curiosity natural to the situation—“do you object, I mean, to going down and seeing?”
“Not at all,” I cheerfully answered, glad enough of this chance to settle my own doubts.
The lights had not yet been put out in the halls, though I saw none in the drawing-room or library. Indeed, I ran upon Nixon coming from the latter, where he had evidently been attending to his duties of fastening windows and extinguishing lamps.
“Mrs. Packard sent me down to see who laughed just now so loudly. Was it you?” I asked him.
“No, miss. I didn't laugh. There was nothing to laugh at,” he replied.
“You heard the laugh? It seemed to come from somewhere here. I was on the third floor and I heard it plainly.”
His face twitched—a habit of his when under excitement, as I have since learned—as with a shrug of his old shoulders he curtly answered:
“You were listening; I was not. If any one laughed down here I didn't hear 'em.”
Confident that he was lying I turned quietly away and proceeded down the hall toward Mayor Packard's study.
“I wish to speak to the Mayor,” I explained.
“He is not there.” The man had eagerly followed me. “He has not come home yet, miss.”
“But the gas is burning brightly inside and the door is ajar. Some one is there.”
“It is Mr. Steele. He came in an hour ago. He often works here till after midnight.”
I had heard what I wanted to know, but being by this time at the very threshold of the door I could not forbear giving the latter a slight push so as to catch a momentary glimpse of the man he spoke of.
He was sitting at his post, and as he neither looked up nor stirred at my intrusion I had an excellent opportunity for observing again the clearly-cut profile which had roused my admiration earlier in the day.
Certainly, seen as I saw it now, in the concentrated glow of a lamp shaded from every other corner of the room, it was a face well worth looking at. Smooth-shaven, with every harmonious line open to view, it struck the eye with the force and beauty of a cameo. Its effect upon the observer was instantaneous, but the heart was not warmed nor the imagination awakened by it. Notwithstanding the perfection of the features, possibly because of this perfection, the whole countenance had a cold look, as cold as the sculpture it suggested, and while incomparable in pure physical attraction, lacked the indefinable something which gave life and meaning to such faces as Mayor Packard's, for instance. Yet it was not devoid of expression nor did it fail to possess a meaning of its own. Indeed, it was the meaning in it which held me enchained. Abstracted as the man appeared to be, even to the point of not perceiving my intruding figure in the open doorway, the thoughts which held him were not common thoughts, nor were they such as could be easily read even by an accustomed eye in a passing moment. Much handsomer than any sphinx, he was equally inscrutable, and being assured of this I softly withdrew, not finding any excuse for breaking in upon a man so occupied.
The butler stood awaiting me not three feet from the door. But taking a lesson from the gentleman I had just left I ignored his presence completely, and, tripping lightly upstairs, found Mrs. Packard awaiting me at the head of the first flight instead of the second.
Her fears, or whatever it was which moved her, had not diminished in my absence. She stood erect, but it was by the help of her grasp on the banisters. There was mortal apprehension in her eyes and a passion of inquiry in her whole attitude which I was glad her husband was not there to see.
I made haste to answer that inquiry by immediately observing:
“I saw Nixon. He was just coming out of the library. He says that he heard no laugh. The only other person I came upon downstairs was Mr. Steele. He was busy over some papers and I did not like to interrupt him; but he did not look as if that laugh had come from him.”
“Thank you.”
The words were hoarsely uttered and the tone was unnatural, though she tried to carry it off with an indifferent gesture and a quick movement toward her room. I admired her self-control, for it was her self-control, and was contrasting the stateliness of present bearing with the cringing attitude she had assumed a few minutes before, when, without warning or any premonitory sound, all that beauty and pride and splendor collapsed before my eyes, and she fell at my feet, stricken and senseless.
CONTINUED IN THE JULY JOURNAL