The Mayor's Wife

CHAPTER XV. HARDLY A COINCIDENCE

The old lady’s eyes met ours without purpose or intelligence. It was plain that she did not see us; also plain that she was held back in her advance by some doubt in her beclouded brain. We could see her hover, as it were, at her end of the dark passage, while I held my breath and Mr. Steele panted audibly. Then gradually she drew back and disappeared behind the door, which she forgot to shut, as we could tell from the gradually receding light and the faint fall of her footsteps after the last dim flicker had faded away.

When she was quite gone, Mr. Steele spoke:

“You must be satisfied now,” he said. “Do you still wish to go on, or shall we return and explain this accident to the girls whose voices I certainly hear in the hall overhead?”

“We must go back,” I reluctantly consented. A wild idea had crossed my brain of following out my first impulse and of charging Miss Charity in her own house with the visits which had from time to time depopulated this house.

“I shall leave you to make the necessary explanations,” said he. “I am really rushed with business and should be down-town on the mayor’s affairs at this very moment.”

“I am quite ready,” said I. Then as I squeezed my way through between the corner of the cabinet and the foundation wall, I could not help asking him how he thought it possible for these old ladies to mount to the halls above from the bottom of the four-foot hole in which we now stood.

“The same way in which I now propose that you should,” he replied, lifting into view the object we had seen at one side of the passage, and which now showed itself to be a pair of folding steps. “Canny enough to discover or perhaps to open this passage, they were canny enough to provide themselves with means of getting out of it. Shall I help you?”

“In a minute,” I said. “I am so curious. How do you suppose they worked this trap from here? They did not press the spring in the molding.”

He pointed to one side of the opening, where part of the supporting mechanism was now visible.

“They worked that. It is all simple enough on this side of the trap; the puzzle is about the other. How did they manage to have all this mechanism put in without rousing any one’s attention? And why so much trouble?”

“Some time I will tell you,” I replied, putting my foot on the step. “O girls!” I exclaimed, as two screams rang out above and two agitated faces peered down upon us. “I’ve had an accident and a great adventure, but I’ve solved the mystery of the ghost. It was just one of the two poor old ladies next door. They used to come up through this trap. Where is Mrs. Packard?”

They were too speechless with wonder to answer me. I had to reach up my arms twice before either of them would lend me a helping hand. But when I was once up and Mr. Steele after me, the questions they asked came so thick and fast that I almost choked in my endeavor to answer them and to get away. Nixon appeared in the middle of it, and, congratulating myself that Mr. Steele had been able to slip away to the study while I was talking to the girls, I went over the whole story again for his benefit, after which I stopped abruptly and asked again where Mrs. Packard was.

Nixon, with a face as black as the passage from which I had just escaped, muttered some words about queer doings for respectable people, but said nothing about his mistress unless the few words he added to his final lament about the cabinet contained some allusion to her fondness for the articles it held. We could all see that they had suffered greatly from their fall. Annoyed at his manner, which was that of a man personally aggrieved, I turned to Ellen. “You have just been up-stairs,” I said. “Is Mrs. Packard still in the nursery?”

“She was, but not more than five minutes ago she slipped down-stairs and went out. It was just before the noise you made falling down into this hole.”

Out! I was sorry; I wanted to disburden myself at once.

“Well, leave everything as it is,” I commanded, despite the rebellion in Nixon’s eye. “I will wait in the reception-room till she returns and then tell her at once. She can blame nobody but me, if she is displeased at what she sees.”

Nixon grumbled something and moved off. The girls, full of talk, ran up-stairs to have it out in the nursery with Letty, and I went toward the front. How long I should have to stay there before Mrs. Packard’s return I did not know. She might stay away an hour and she might stay away all day. I could simply wait. But it was a happy waiting. I should see a renewal of joy in her and a bounding hope for the future when once I told any tale. It was enough to keep me quiet for the three long hours I sat there with my face to the window, watching for the first sight of her figure on the crossing leading into our street.

When it came, it was already lunch-time, but there was no evidence of hurry in her manner; there was, rather, an almost painful hesitation. As she drew nearer, she raised her eyes to the house-front and I saw with what dread she approached it, and what courage it took for her to enter it at all.

The sight of my face at the window altered her expression, however, and she came quite cheerfully up the steps. Careful to forestall Nixon in his duty, I opened the front door, and, drawing her into the room where I had been waiting, I blurted out my whole story before she could remove her hat.

“O Mrs. Packard,” I cried, “I have such good news for you. The thing you feared hasn’t any meaning. The house was never haunted; the shadows which have been seen here were the shadows of real beings. There is a secret entrance to this house, and through it the old ladies next door, have come from time to time in search of their missing bonds, or else to frighten off all other people from the chance of finding them. Shall I show you where the place is?”

Her face, when I began, had shown such changes I was startled; but by the time I had finished a sort of apathy had fallen across it and her voice sounded hollow as she cried: “What are you telling me? A secret entrance we knew nothing about and the Misses Quinlan using it to hunt about these halls at night! Romantic, to be sure. Yes, let me see the place. It is very interesting and very inconvenient. Will you tell Nixon, please, to have this passage closed?”

I felt a chill. If it was interest she felt it was a very forced one. She even paused to take off her hat. But when I had drawn her through the library into the side hall, and shown her the great gap where the cabinet had stood, I thought she brightened a little and showed some of the curiosity I expected. But it was very easily appeased, and before I could have made the thing clear to her she was back in the library, fingering her hat and listening, as it seemed to me, to everything but my voice.

I did not understand it.

Making one more effort I came up close to her and impetuously cried out:

“Don’t you see what this does to the phantasm you professed to have seen yourself once in this very spot? It proves it a myth, a product of your own imagination, something which it must certainly be impossible for you ever to fear again. That is why I made the search which has ended in this discovery. I wanted to rid you of your forebodings. Do assure me that I have. It will be such a comfort to me—and how much more to the mayor!”

Her lack-luster eyes fell; her fingers closed on the hat whose feathers she had been trifling with, and, lifting it, she moved softly into the reception-room and from there into the hall and up the front stairs. I stood aghast; she had not even heard what I had been saying.

By the time I had recovered my equanimity enough to follow, she had disappeared into her own room. It could not have been in a very comfortable condition, for there were evidences about the hall that it was being thoroughly swept. As I endeavored to pass the door, I inadvertently struck the edge of a little taboret standing in my way. It toppled and a little book lying on it slid to the floor; as I stooped to pick it up my already greatly disconcerted mind was still further affected by the glimpse which was given me of its title. It was this:

Struck forcibly by a coincidence suggesting something quite different from spiritual interference, I allowed the book to open in my hand, which it did at this evidently frequently conned passage:

A book was in my hand and a strong light was shining on it and on me from a lamp on a near-by table.  The story was interesting and I was following the adventures it was relating, with eager interest, when  suddenly the character of the light changed, a mist seemed to pass before my eyes and, on my looking up, I saw standing between me and  the lamp the figure of a man, which vanished as I looked, leaving in my breast an unutterable dread and in my memory the glare of two  unearthly eyes whose menace could mean but one thing—death.

The next day I received news of a fatal accident to my husband.

I closed the little volume with very strange thoughts. If Mayor Packard had believed himself to have received an explanation of his wife’s strange condition in the confession she had made of having seen an apparition such as this in her library, or if I had believed myself to have touched the bottom of the mystery absorbing this unhappy household in my futile discoveries of the human and practical character of the visitants who had haunted this house, then Mayor Packard and I had made a grave mistake.

CHAPTER XVI. IN THE LIBRARY

I was still in Mrs. Packard’s room, brooding over the enigma offered by the similarity between the account I had just read and the explanation she had given of the mysterious event which had thrown such a cloud over her life, when, moved by some unaccountable influence, I glanced up and saw Nixon standing in the open doorway, gazing at me with an uneasy curiosity I was sorry enough to have inspired.

“Mrs. Packard wants you,” he declared with short ceremony. “She’s in the library.” And, turning on his heel, he took his deliberate way down-stairs.

I followed hard after him, and, being brisk in my movements, was at his back before he was half-way to the bottom. He seemed to resent this, for he turned a baleful look back at me and purposely delayed his steps without giving me the right of way.

“Is Mrs. Packard in a hurry?” I asked. “If so, you had better let me pass.”

He gave no appearance of having heard me; his attention had been caught by something going on at the rear of the hall we were now approaching. Following his anxious glance, I saw the door of the mayor’s study open and Mrs. Packard come out. As we reached the lower step, she passed us on her way to the library. Wondering what errand had taken her to the study, which she was supposed not to visit, I turned to join her and caught a glimpse of the old man’s face. It was more puckered, scowling and malignant of aspect than usual. I was surprised that Mrs. Packard had not noticed it. Surely it was not the countenance of a mere disgruntled servant. Something not to be seen on the surface was disturbing this old man; and, moving in the shadows as I was, I questioned whether it would not conduce to some explanation between Mrs. Packard and myself if I addressed her on the subject of this old serving-man’s peculiar ways.

But the opportunity for doing this did not come that morning. On entering the library I was met by Mrs. Packard with the remark:

“Have you any interest in politics? Do you know anything about the subject?”

“I have an interest in Mayor Packard’s election,” I smilingly assured her; “and I know that in this I represent a great number of people in this town if not in the state.”

“You want to see him governor? You desired this before you came to this house? You believe him to be a good man—the right man for the place?”

“I certainly do, Mrs. Packard.”

“And you represent a large class who feel the same?”

“I think so, Mrs. Packard.”

“I am so glad!” Her tone was almost hysterical. “My heart is set on this election,” she ardently explained. “It means so much this year. My husband is very ambitious. So am I—for him. I would give—” there she paused, caught back, it would seem, by some warning thought. I took advantage of her preoccupation to scrutinize her features more closely than I had dared to do while she was directly addressing me. I found them set in the stern mold of profound feeling—womanly feeling, no doubt, but one actuated by causes far greater than the subject, serious as it was, apparently called for. She would give—

What lay beyond that give?

I never knew, for she never finished her sentence.

Observing the breathless interest her manner evoked, or possibly realizing how nearly she had come to an unnecessary if not unwise self-betrayal, she suddenly smoothed her brow and, catching up a piece of embroidery from the table, sat down with it in her hand.

“A wife is naturally heart and soul with her husband,” she observed, with an assumption of composure which restored some sort of naturalness to the conversation. “You are a thinking person, I see, and what is more, a conscientious one. There are many, many such in town; many amongst the men as well as amongst the women. Do you think I am in earnest about this—that Mr. Packard’s chances could be affected by—by anything that might be said about me? You saw, or heard us say, at least, that my name had been mentioned in the morning paper in a way not altogether agreeable to us. It was false, of course, but—” She started, and her work fell from her hands. The door-bell had rung and we could hear Nixon in the hall hastening to answer it.

“Miss Saunders,” she hurriedly interposed with a great effort to speak naturally, “I have told Nixon that I wish to see Mr. Steele if he comes in this morning. I wish to speak to him about the commission intrusted to him by my husband. I confess Mr. Steele has not inspired me with the confidence that Mr. Packard feels in him and I rather shrink from this interview. Will you be good enough—rather will you show me the great kindness of sitting on that low divan by the fireplace where you will not be visible—see, you may have my work to busy yourself with—and if—he may not, you know—if he should show the slightest disposition to transgress in any way, rise and show yourself?”

I was conscious of flushing slightly, but she was not looking my way, and the betrayal cost me only a passing uneasiness. She had, quite without realizing it, offered me the one opportunity I most desired. In my search for a new explanation of Mrs. Packard’s rapidly changing moods, I had returned to my first suspicion—the attraction and possibly the passion of the handsome secretary for herself. I had very little reason for entertaining such a possibility. I had seen nothing on his part to justify it and but little on hers.

Yet in the absence of every other convincing cause of trouble I allowed myself to dwell on this one, and congratulated myself upon the chance she now offered me of seeing and hearing how he would comport himself when he thought that he was alone with her. Assured by the sounds in the hall that Mr. Steele was approaching, I signified my acquiescence with her wishes, and, taking the embroidery from her hand, sat down in the place she had pointed out.

I heard the deep breath she drew, forgot in an instant my purpose of questioning her concerning Nixon, and settled myself to listen, not only to such words as must inevitably pass between them, but to their tones, to the unconscious sigh, to whatever might betray his feeling toward her or hers toward him, convinced as I now was that feeling of some kind lay back of an interview which she feared to hold without the support of another’s secret presence.

The calm even tones of the gentleman himself, modulated to an expression of utmost deference, were the first to break the silence.

“You wish to see me, Mrs. Packard?”

“Yes.” The tremble in this ordinary monosyllable was slight but quite perceptible. “Mr. Packard has given you a task, concerning the necessity of which I should be glad to learn your opinion. Do you think it wise to—to probe into such matters? Not that I mean to deter you. You are under Mr. Packard’s orders, but a word from so experienced a man would be welcome, if only to reconcile me to an effort which must lead to the indiscriminate use of my name in quarters where it hurts a woman to imagine it used at all.”

This, with her eyes on his face, of this I felt sure. Her tone was much too level for her not to be looking directly at him. To any response he might give of the same nature I had no clue, but his tone when he answered was as cool and deferentially polite as was to be expected from a man chosen by Mayor Packard for his private secretary. “Mrs. Packard, your fears are very natural. A woman shrinks from such inquiries, even when sustained by the consciousness that nothing can rob her name of its deserved honor. But if we let one innuendo pass, how can we prevent a second? The man who did this thing should be punished. In this I agree with Mayor Packard.”

She stirred impulsively. I could hear the rustle of her dress as she moved, probably to lessen the distance between them. “You are honest with me?” she urged. “You do agree with Mr. Packard in this?”

His answer was firm, straightforward, and, as far as I could judge, free from any objectionable feature. “I certainly do, Mrs. Packard. The hesitation I expressed when he first spoke was caused by the one consideration mentioned,—my fear lest something might go amiss in C– to-night if I busied myself otherwise than with the necessities of the speech with which he is about to open his campaign.”

“I see. You are very desirous that Mr. Packard should win in this election?”

“I am his secretary, and was largely instrumental in securing his nomination for governor,” was the simple reply. There was a pause—how filled, I would have given half my expected salary to know. Then I heard her ask him the very question she had asked me.

“Do you think that in the event of your not succeeding in forcing an apology from the man who inserted that objectionable paragraph against myself—that—that such hints of something being wrong with me will in any way affect Mr. Packard’s chances—lose him votes, I mean? Will the husband suffer because of some imagined lack in his wife?”

“One can not say.” Thus appealed to, the man seemed to weigh his words carefully, out of consideration for her, I thought. “No real admirer of the mayor’s would go over to the enemy from any such cause as that. Only the doubtful—the half-hearted—those who are ready to grasp at any excuse for voting with the other party, would allow a consideration of the mayor’s domestic relations to interfere with their confidence in him as a public officer.”

“But these—” How I wish I could have seen her face! “These half-hearted voters, their easily stifled convictions are what make majorities,” she stammered. Mr. Steele may have bowed; he probably did, for she went on confidently and with a certain authority not observable in the tone of her previous remarks. “You are right. The paragraph reflecting on me must be traced to its source. The lie must be met and grappled with. I was not well last week and showed it, but I am perfectly well to-day and am resolved to show that, too. No skeleton hangs in the Packard closet. I am a happy wife and a happy mother. Let them come here and see. This morning I shall issue invitations for a dinner to be given the first night you can assure me Mr. Packard will be at home. Do you know of any such night?”