_ Chapter XII. Miriam
Miriam moved about the house, silently, as always. She had assumed the extra burden of Barbara's helplessness as she assumed everything--without comment, and with outward calm.
[Sidenote: Joy and Duty]
Only her dark eyes, that burned and glittered so strangely, gave hint of the restlessness within. She served Ambrose North with steadfast and unfailing devotion; she waited upon Barbara mechanically, but readily. An observer could not have detected any real difference in her bearing toward the two, yet the service of one was a joy, the other a duty.
After the first week the nurse who had remained with Barbara had gone back to the city. In this short time, Miriam had learned much from her. She knew how to change a sheet without disturbing the patient very much; she could give Barbara both food and drink as she lay flat upon her back, and ease her aching body a little in spite of the plaster cast.
Ambrose North restlessly haunted the house and refused to leave Barbara's bedside unless she was asleep. Often she feigned slumber to give him opportunity to go outdoors for the exercise he was accustomed to taking. And so the life of the household moved along in its usual channels.
[Sidenote: A Living Image]
As she lay helpless, with her pretty colour gone and the great braids of golden hair hanging down on either side, Barbara looked more like her dead mother than ever. Suffering had brought maturity to her face and sometimes even Miriam was startled by the resemblance. One day Barbara had asked, thoughtfully, "Aunty, do I look like my mother?" And Miriam had answered, harshly, "You're the living image of her, if you want to know."
Miriam repeatedly told herself that Constance had wronged her--that Ambrose North had belonged to her until the younger girl came from school with her pretty, laughing ways. He had never had eyes for Miriam after he had once seen Constance, and, in an incredibly short time, they had been married.
Miriam had been forced to stand by and see it; she had made dainty garments for Constance's trousseau, and had even been obliged to serve as maid of honour at the wedding. She had seen, day by day, the man's love increase and the girl's fancy wane, and, after his blindness came upon him, Constance would often have been cruelly thoughtless had not Miriam sternly held her to her own ideal of wifely duty.
Now, when she had taken a mother's place to Barbara, and worked for the blind man as his wife would never have dreamed of doing, she saw the faithless one worshipped almost as a household god. The power to disillusionise North lay in her hands--of that she was very sure. What if she should come to him some day with the letter Constance had left for another man and which she had never delivered? What if she should open it, at his bidding, and read him the burning sentences Constance had written to another during her last hour on earth? Knowing, beyond doubt, that Constance was faithless, would he at last turn to the woman he had deserted for the sake of a pretty face? The question racked Miriam by night and by day.
[Sidenote: Miriam's Jealousy]
And, as always, the dead Constance, mute, accusing, bitterly reproachful, haunted her dreams. Her fear of it became an obsession. As Barbara grew daily more to resemble her mother, Miriam's position became increasingly difficult and complex.
Sometimes she waited outside the door until she could summon courage to go in to Barbara, who lay, helpless, in the very room where her mother had died. Miriam never entered without seeing upon the dressing table those two envelopes, one addressed to Ambrose North and one to herself. Her own envelope was bulky, since it contained two letters beside the short note which might have been read to anybody. These two, with seals unbroken, were safely put away in Miriam's room.
One was addressed to Laurence Austin. Miriam continually told herself that it was impossible for her to deliver it--that the person to whom it was addressed was dead. She tried persistently to forget the five years that had intervened between Constance's death and his. For five years, he had lived almost directly across the street and Miriam saw him daily. Yet she had not given him the letter, though the vision of Constance, dumbly pleading for some boon, had distressed her almost every night until Laurence Austin died.
After that, there had been peace--but only for a little while. Constance still came, though intermittently, and reproached Miriam for betraying her trust.
[Sidenote: The One Betrayal]
As Barbara's twenty-second birthday approached, Miriam sometimes wondered whether Constance would not cease to haunt her after the other letter was delivered. She had been faithful in all things but one--surely she might be forgiven the one betrayal. The envelope was addressed, in a clear, unfaltering hand: "To My Daughter Barbara. To be opened upon her twenty-second birthday." In her brief note to Miriam, Constance had asked her to destroy it unopened if Barbara should not live until the appointed day.
She had said nothing, however, about the other letter--had not even alluded to its existence. Yet there it was, apparently written upon a single sheet of paper and enclosed in an envelope firmly sealed with wax. The monogram, made of the interlaced initials "C.N.," still lingered upon the seal. For twenty years and more the letter had waited, unread, and the hands that once would eagerly have torn it open were long since made one with the all-hiding, all-absolving dust.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: At Supper]
At supper, Ambrose North still had his fine linen and his Satsuma cup. Miriam sat at the other end, where the coarse cloth and the heavy dishes were. She used the fine china for Barbara, also, washing it carefully six times every day.
The blind man ate little, for he was lonely without the consciousness that Barbara sat, smiling, across the table from him.
"Is she asleep?" he asked, of Miriam.
"Yes."
"She hasn't had her supper yet, has she?"
"No."
"When she wakes, will you let me take it up to her?"
"Yes, if you want to."
"Miriam, tell me--does Barbara look like her mother?" His voice was full of love and longing.
"There may be a slight resemblance," Miriam admitted.
"But how much?"
[Sidenote: The Same Old Question]
A curious, tigerish impulse possessed Miriam. He had asked her this same question many times and she had always eluded him with a vague generalisation.
"How much does she resemble her mother?" he insisted. "You told me once that they were 'something alike.'"
"That was a long time ago," answered Miriam. She was breathing hard and her eyes glittered. "Barbara has changed lately."
"Don't hide the truth for fear of hurting me," he pleaded. "Once for all I ask you--does Barbara resemble her mother?"
For a moment Miriam paused, then all her hatred of the dead woman rose up within her. "No," she said, coldly. "Their hair and eyes are nearly the same colour, but they are not in the least alike. Why? What difference does it make?"
"None," sighed the blind man. "But I am glad to have the truth at last, and I thank you. Sometimes I have fancied, when Barbara spoke, that it was Constance talking to me. It would have been a great satisfaction to me to have had my baby the living image of her mother, since I am to see again, but it is all right as it is."
Since he was to see! Miriam had not counted upon that possibility, and she clenched her hands in swift remorse. If he should discover that she had lied to him, he would never forgive her, and she would lose what little regard he had for her. He had a Puritan insistence upon the literal truth.
"How beautiful Constance was," he sighed. An inarticulate murmur escaped from Miriam, which he took for full assent.
"Did you ever see anyone half so beautiful, Miriam?"
Her throat was parched, but Miriam forced herself to whisper, "No." This much was truth.
[Sidenote: A Beautiful Bride]
"How sweet she was and what pretty ways she had," he went on. "Do you remember how lovely she was in her wedding gown?"
Again Miriam forced herself to answer, "Yes."
"Do you remember how people said we were mismated--that a man of fifty could never hope to keep the love of a girl of twenty, who knew nothing of the world?"
"I remember," muttered Miriam.
"And it was false, wasn't it?" he asked, hungering for assurance. "Constance loved me--do you remember how dearly she loved me?"
[Sidenote: Beloved Constance]
A thousand words struggled for utterance, but Miriam could not speak just then. She longed, as never before, to tear open the envelope addressed to Laurence Austin and read to North the words his beloved Constance had written to another man before she took her own life. She longed to tell him how, for months previous, she had followed Constance when she left the house, and discovered that she had a trysting-place down on the shore. He wanted the truth, did he? Very well, he should have it--the truth without mercy.
"Constance," she began, huskily, "Constance loved----"
"I know," interrupted Ambrose North. "I know how dearly she loved me up to the very last. Even Barbara, baby that she was, felt it. She remembers it still."
Barbara's bell tinkled upstairs while he said the last words. "She wants us," he said, his face illumined with love. "If you will prepare her supper, Miriam, I will take it up."
The room swayed before Miriam's eyes and her senses were confused. She had drawn her dagger to strike and it had been forced back into its sheath by some unseen hand. "But I will," she repeated to herself again and again as her trembling hands prepared Barbara's tray. "He shall know the truth--and from me."
* * * * *
"Barbara," said the old man, as he entered the room, "your Daddy has brought up your supper."
"I'm glad," she responded, brightly. "I'm very hungry."
"We have been talking downstairs of your mother," he went on, as he set down the tray. "Miriam has been telling me how beautiful she was, what winning ways she had, and how dearly she loved us. She says you do not look at all like her, Barbara, and we both have been thinking that you did."
[Sidenote: Disappointed]
Barbara was startled. Only a few days ago, Aunt Miriam had assured her that she was the living image of her mother. She was perplexed and disappointed. Then she reflected that when she had asked the question she had been very ill and Aunt Miriam was trying to answer in a way that pleased her. She generously forgave the deceit for the sake of the kindly motive behind it.
"Dear Aunt Miriam," said Barbara, softly. "How good she has been to us, Daddy."
"Yes," he replied; "I do not know what we should have done without her. I want to do something for her, dear. Shall we buy her a diamond ring, or some pearls?"
"We'll see, Daddy. When I can walk, and you can see, we shall do many things together that we cannot do now."
The old man bent down very near her. "Flower of the Dusk," he whispered, "when may I go?"
"Go where, Daddy?"
"To the city, you know, with Doctor Conrad. I want to begin to see."
Barbara patted his hand. "When I am strong enough to spare you," she said, "I will let you go. When you see me, I want to be well and able to go to meet you without crutches. Will you wait until then?"
"I want to see my baby. I do not care about the crutches, now that you are to get well. I want to see you, dear, so very, very much."
"Some day, Daddy," she promised him. "Wait until I'm almost well, won't you?"
"Just as you say, dear, but it seems so long."
"I couldn't spare you now, Daddy. I want you with me every day."
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Miriam's Prayer]
Though long unused to prayer, Miriam prayed that night, very earnestly, that Ambrose North might not recover his sight; that he might never see the daughter who lived and spoke in the likeness of her dead mother. It was long past midnight when she fell asleep. The house had been quiet for several hours.
As she slept, she dreamed. The door opened quietly, yet with a certain authority, and Constance, in her grave-clothes, came into her room. The white gown trailed behind her as she walked, and the two golden braids, so like Barbara's, hung down over either shoulder and far below her waist.
She fixed her deep, sad eyes upon Miriam, reproachfully, as always, but her red lips were curled in a mocking smile. "Do your worst," she seemed to say. "You cannot harm me now."
[Sidenote: The Vision]
The vision sat down in a low chair and rocked back and forth, slowly, as though meditating. Occasionally, she looked at Miriam doubtfully, but the mocking smile was still there. At last Constance rose, having come, apparently, to some definite plan. She went to the dresser, opened the lower drawer, and reached under the pile of neatly-folded clothing.
Cold as ice, Miriam sprang to her feet. She was wide awake now, but the room was empty. The door was open, half-way, and she could not remember whether she had left it so when she went to bed. She had always kept her bedroom door closed and locked, but since Barbara's illness had left it at least ajar, that she might be able to hear a call in the night.
Shaken like an aspen in a storm, Miriam lighted her candle and stared into the shadows. Nothing was there. The clock ticked steadily--almost maddeningly. It was just four o'clock.
She, too, opened the lower drawer of the dresser and thrust her hand under the clothing. The letters were still there. She drew them out, her hands trembling, and read the superscriptions with difficulty, for the words danced, and made themselves almost illegible.
Constance was coming back for the letters, then? That was out of Miriam's power to prevent, but she would keep the knowledge of their contents--at least of one. She thrust aside contemptuously the letter to Barbara--she cared nothing for that.
[Sidenote: The Seal Broken]
Taking the one addressed to "Mr. Laurence Austin; Kindness of Miss Leonard," she went back to bed, taking her candle to the small table that stood at the head of the bed. With forced calmness, she broke the seal which the dead fingers had made so long ago, opened it shamelessly, and read it.
"You who have loved me since the beginning of time," the letter began, "will understand and forgive me for what I do to-day. I do it because I am not strong enough to go on and do my duty by those who need me.
"If there should be meeting past the grave, some day you and I shall come together again with no barrier between us. I take with me the knowledge of your love, which has sheltered and strengthened and sustained me since the day we first met, and which must make even a grave warm and sweet.
"And, remember this--dead though I am, I love you still; you and my little lame baby who needs me so and whom I must leave because I am not strong enough to stay.
"Through life and in death and eternally,
"Yours,
"CONSTANCE."
In the letter was enclosed a long, silken tress of golden hair. It curled around Miriam's fingers as though it were alive, and she thrust it from her. It was cold and smooth and sinuous, like a snake. She folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope with the lock of hair, then returned it to its old hiding-place, with Barbara's.
"So, Constance," she said to herself, "you came for the letters? Come and take them when you like--I do not fear you now."
[Sidenote: The Evidence]
All of her suspicions were crystallised into certainty by this one page of proof. Constance might not have violated the letter of her marriage vow--very probably had not even dreamed of it--but in spirit, she had been false.
"Come, Constance," said Miriam, aloud; "come and take your letters. When the hour comes, I shall tell him, and you cannot keep me from it."
[Sidenote: Triumph]
She was curiously at peace, now, and no longer afraid. Her dark eyes blazed with triumph as she lay there in the candle light. The tension within her had snapped when suspicion gave way to absolute knowledge. Thwarted and denied and pushed aside all her life by Constance and her memory, at last she had come to her own. _