Woolson Constance Fenimore
Anne: A Novel

There was no one to whom Anne could speak upon the subject which was burning like a constant fire within her heart. And when, a few days later, a letter came from Gregory Dexter, she opened it eagerly: there would be, there must be, comfort here. She read the pages quickly, and her heart stood still. "If I thought that there was the least danger that the secret of this cowardly, cruel deed would not be found out," wrote Dexter, "I should at once leave all this labor in which I am engaged, important as it is, and devote myself to the search for proofs to convict the murderer. Never in my life has my desire for swift, sharp justice been so deeply stirred."

Anne laid down the letter with a trembling hand. If he "thought that there was the least danger"; then he thought there was none. But so far no one had been apprehended, or even suspected, save Ward Heathcote alone. Did he think, then, that Heathcote was guilty? Could he think this, knowing him as he did, having been in a certain sense his companion and friend?

Dexter had not liked Heathcote personally, but he was capable of just judgment above his personal likings and dislikings, and Anne knew it. She knew that he had examined the testimony impartially. It must be, then, it must be, that there were grounds for his belief. She took her pen and wrote a burning letter – a letter of entreaty and passionate remonstrance. And then, the next morning, she burned it: she must not write or speak on the subject at all, not even to him.

The slow days moved onward like the processions of a dream. But no one noticed any change in the young teacher, who journeyed wearily through the long hours. Old Nora saw the piles of newspapers in her mistress's room, but as she could not read, they betrayed nothing. She would not, besides, have recognized Helen under the name of Heathcote; the beautiful lady who had visited the half-house in the days of Jeanne-Armande was named Lorrington. The slow days moved on, but not without events. In this case the law had moved speedily. An indictment had been found, and the trial was to take place without delay in the county town of the district to which Timloesville belonged.

Miss Teller had gone to this town; the newspapers said that she had taken a house, and would remain during the trial, or as long as Captain Heathcote was confined there. Anne, reading these items, reading the many descriptions of Heathcote, the suggestions regarding the murder, the theories concerning the blunder (for it was conceded that there had been a blunder), asked herself wonderingly if he had no friends left – no friends on earth, save herself and Miss Teller? The whole world seemed to be against him. But she judged only from the newspapers. There was another side. This was a small, local, but in one way powerful, minority, which stood by the accused man immovably. This minority was composed almost entirely of women – women high in New York society, Helen's own companions and friends. They formed a determined band of champions, who, without condescending to use any arguments, but simply through their own personality, exerted a strong influence, limited, it is true, but despotic. If the case was tried beforehand by the newspapers, it was also tried beforehand by sweet voices and scornful lips in many New York drawing-rooms. Society resolved itself into two parties – those who did and those who did not believe in the guilt of the imprisoned man. Those who did believe were almost all men; those who did not, almost all women; the exceptions being a few men who stood by Heathcote in spite of the evidence, and a few women who, having logical minds, stood by the evidence in spite of themselves.

When the trial began, not only was Miss Teller present, but Mrs. Varce and Isabel, Mrs. Bannert and her daughter-in-law, together with others equally well known as friends of Helen's, and prominent members of New York's fashionable society.

Multomah, the little county town, was excited; its one hotel was crowded. The country people came in to attend the trial from miles around; great lawyers were to be present, there was to be "mighty fine speaking." The gentleman had murdered his wife for the million dollars she constantly carried with her. The gentleman had murdered his wife because she had just discovered that he was already married before he met her, and he was afraid she would reveal the secret. A local preacher improved the occasion by a sermon decked profusely with Apollyons and Abaddons. It was not clearly known what he meant, or where he stood; but the discourse was listened to by a densely packed crowd of farming people, who came out wiping their foreheads, and sat down on convenient tombstones to talk it over, and eat their dinners, brought in baskets, trying the case again beforehand for the five-hundredth time, with texts and Scripture phrases thrown in to give it a Sabbath flavor.

The New York dailies had sent their reporters; every evening Anne read their telegraphic summaries of the day's events; every morning, the account of the same in detail. She was not skillful enough to extract the real evidence from the mass of irrelevant testimony with which it was surrounded, the questions and answers, the confusing pertinacity of the lawyers over some little point which seemed to her as far from the real subject as a blade of grass is from the fixed stars. She turned, therefore, to the printed comments which day by day accompanied the report of the proceedings, gathering from them the progress made, and their ideas of the probabilities which lay in the future. The progress seemed rapid; the probabilities were damning. No journal pretended that they were otherwise. Yet still the able pens of the calmer writers counselled deliberation. "There have been cases with even closer evidence than this," they warningly wrote, "in which the accused, by some unexpected and apparently trivial turn in the testimony, has been proven clearly innocent. In this case, while the evidence is strong, it is difficult to imagine a motive. Mrs. Heathcote was much attached to her husband; she was, besides, a beautiful, accomplished, and fascinating woman. That a man should deliberately plan to murder such a wife, merely in order to obtain possession of wealth which was already practically his, is incredible; and until some more reasonable motive is discovered, many will refuse to believe even the evidence."

Anne, reading this sentence, felt faint. So far the mysterious testimony to which vague allusion had been made in the beginning had not been brought forward; the time had been occupied by the evidence concerning the events at Timloesville, and the questioning and cross-questioning of the Timloesville witnesses. A "more reasonable motive." The veiled shape that accompanied her seemed to assume more definite outline, and to grow from Dread into Fear. And yet she could not tell of what she was afraid.

The days passed, and she wondered how it was that she could still eat, and sleep, and speak as usual, while her whole being was away in that little Pennsylvania town. She did speak and teach as usual, but she did not eat or sleep. Something besides food sustained her. Was it hope? Or fear? Oh, why did not all the world cry out that he was not, could not be guilty! Were people all mad, and deaf, and blind? She lived on in a suspense which was like a continual endurance of suffocation, which yet never quite attains the relief of death.

Miss Teller's lawyers labored with skill and vigilance; all that talent – nay, more, genius – could do, they did. Their theory was that the murder was committed by a third person, who entered Mrs. Heathcote's room by the same outside stairway which her husband had used, after his departure; and they defied the prosecution to prove that they were wrong. In answer to this theory the prosecution presented certain facts, namely: that Heathcote was seen entering by the outside stairway, and that no one else was seen; that the impressions found there were those of a left hand, and that Heathcote was at the time left-handed; that a towel, marked with the name of the hotel and stained with blood, was found on the river-bank at the end of a direct trail from the garden, and that the chamber-maid testified that, whereas she had placed four towels in the room a few hours before, there were in the morning but two remaining, and that no others were missing from the whole number owned by the hotel.

At this stage of the proceedings, Anne, sitting in her own room as usual now in the evening, with one newspaper in her hand and the others scattered on the floor by her side, heard a knock on the door below, but, in her absorption, paid no attention to it. In a few moments, however, Nora came up to say that Mr. Dexter was in the parlor, and wished to see her.

Here was an unexpected trial. She had sent a short, carefully guarded answer to his long letter, and he had not written again. It had been comparatively easy to guard written words. But could she command those that must be spoken? She bathed her face in cold water, and stood waiting until she felt that she had called up a calmer expression; she charged herself to guard every look, every word, even the tones of her voice. Then she went down.

CHAPTER XXXII

"I can account for nothing you women do, although I have lived among you seventy-five years."

– Walter Savage Landor.

As she entered the little parlor, Dexter came forward to meet her. "You are looking very well," he said, almost reproachfully.

"I am very well," she answered. "And you?"

"Not well at all. What with the constant and harassing work I am doing, and this horrible affair concerning poor Helen, I confess that I feel worn and old. It is not often that I acknowledge either. I have been busy in the city all day, and must return to my post on the midnight train; but I had two or three hours to spare, and so I have come out to see you. Before we say anything else, however, tell me about yourself. How is it with you at present?"

Glad of a respite, she described to him, with more details than she had hitherto thought necessary, her position, her pupils, and her daily life. She talked rapidly, giving him no opportunity to speak; she hardly knew herself as she went along. At last, however, he did break through the stream of her words. "I am glad you find interest in these matters," he said, coldly. "With me it is different; I can think of nothing but poor Helen."

It was come: now for self-control. All her words failed suddenly; she could not speak.

"Are you not haunted by it?" he continued. "Do you not constantly see her lying there asleep, that pale hair unbraided, those small helpless hands bare of all their jewels – poor defenseless little hands, decked only with the mockery of that wedding ring?"

He was gazing at the wall, as though it were all pictured there. Anne made no reply, and after a pause he went on. "Helen was a fascinating woman; but she was, or could be if she chose, an intensely exasperating woman as well. I am no coward; I think I may say the reverse; but I would rather be alone with a tigress than with such a woman as she would have been, if roused to jealous fury. She would not have stirred, she would not have raised her voice, but she would have spoken words that would have stung like asps and cut like Damascus blades. No devil would have shown in that kind of torment greater ingenuity. I am a self-controlled man, yet I can imagine Helen Lorrington driving me, if she had tried, into such a state of frenzy that I should hardly know what I was doing. In such a case I should end, I think, by crushing her in my arms, and fairly strangling the low voice that taunted me. But – I could never have stabbed her in her sleep!"

Again he paused, and again Anne kept silence. But he did not notice it; he was absorbed in his own train of thought.

"It is a relief to speak of this to you," he continued, "for you knew Helen, and Heathcote also. Do you know I can imagine just how she worked upon him; how that fair face and those narrow eyes of hers wrought their deadly darts. Her very want of strength was an accessory; for if she could have risen and struck him, if she had been capable of any such strong action, the exasperation would have been less. But that a creature so helpless, one whose slight form he had been used to carry about the house in his arms, one who could not walk far unaided – that such a creature should lie there, in all her delicate beauty, and with barbed words deliberately torment him – Anne, I can imagine a rush of madness which might well end in murder and death. But not a plot. If he had killed her in a passion, and then boldly avowed the deed, giving himself up, I should have had some sympathy with him, in spite of the horror of the deed. But to arrange the method of his crime (as he evidently tried to do) so that he would not be discovered, but be enabled quietly to inherit her money – bah! I almost wish I were the hangman myself! Out on the border he would have been lynched long ago."

His listener still remained mute, but a little fold of flesh inside her lips was bitten through by her clinched teeth in the effort she made to preserve that muteness.

It seemed to have been a relief to Dexter to let out those strong words. He paused, turned toward Anne, and for the first time noted her dress. "Are you in mourning?" he asked, doubtfully, looking at the unbroken black of her attire.

"It is the same dress I have worn for several months."

He did not know enough of the details of a woman's garb to see that the change came from the absence of white at the throat and wrists. After Helen's death poor Anne had sewed black lace in her plain black gown; it was the only mourning she could allow herself.

The moment was now come when she must say something. Dexter, his outburst over, was leaning back in his chair, looking at her. "Miss Teller has gone to Multomah, I believe," she remarked, neutrally.

"Yes; singularly enough, she believes him innocent. I heard, while in the city to-day, that the Varces and Bannerts and others of that set believe it also, and are all at Multomah 'for the moral effect.' For the moral effect!" He threw back his head and laughed scornfully. "I wish I had time to run up there myself," he added, "to dwell upon the moral effect of all those fine ladies. However, the plain American people have formed their own opinion of this case, and are not likely to be moved by such influences. They understand. This very evening, on the train, I heard a mechanic say, 'If the jurymen were only fine ladies, now, that Heathcote would get off yet.'"

"How can you repeat such words?" said the girl, blazing out suddenly and uncontrollably, as a fire which has been long smothered bursts into sudden and overpowering flame at the last.

"Of course it is bad taste to jest on such a subject. I only – Why, Anne, what is the matter?" For she had risen and was standing before him, her eyes brilliant with an expression which was almost hate.

"You believe that he did it?" she said.

"I do."

"And I do not! You say that Helen taunted him, that she drove him into a frenzy; you imagine the scene, and picture its details. Know that Helen loved him with her whole heart. Whatever she may have been to you, to him she was utterly devoted, living upon his words and his smile. She esteemed herself blessed simply to be near him – in his presence; and, on that very night, she said that no wife was ever so happy, and that on her knees she had thanked her Creator for that which made her life one long joy."

Gregory Dexter's face had showed the profoundest wonder while the excited girl was speaking, but by the time she ceased he had, in his quick way, grasped something of the truth, unexpected and astonishing though it was.

"You know this?" he said. "Then she wrote to you."

"Yes."

"On the evening of her death?"

"Yes."

"Bagshot testifies that when she left the room, at nine, Mrs. Heathcote was writing. Was that this letter to you?"

"I presume it was."

"When and how was it mailed? Or rather, what is the date of the postmark?"

"The next morning."

Dexter looked at her searchingly. "This may prove to be very important," he said.

"I know it – now."

"Why have you not spoken before?"

"To whom could I speak? Besides, it has not seemed important to me until now; for no one has suggested that she did not love her husband, that she tormented him and drove him into fury, save yourself alone."

"You will see that others will suggest it also," said Dexter, unmoved by her scorn. "Are you prepared to produce this letter?"

"I have it."

"Can I see it?"

"I would rather not show it."

"There is determined concealment here somewhere, Anne, and I am much troubled; I fear you stand very near great danger. Remember that this is a serious matter, and ordinary rules should be set aside, ordinary feelings sacrificed. You will do well to show me that letter, and, in short, to tell me the whole truth plainly. Do you think you have any friend more steadfast than myself?"

"You are kind. But – you are prejudiced."

"Against Heathcote, do you mean?" said Dexter, a sudden flash coming for an instant into his gray eyes. "Is it possible that you, you too, are interested in that man?"

But at this touch upon her heart the girl controlled herself again. She resumed her seat, with her face turned toward the window. "I do not believe that he did it, and you do," she answered, quietly. "That makes a wide separation between us."

But for the moment the man who sat opposite had forgotten the present, to ask himself, with the same old inward wonder and anger, why it was that this other man, who had never done anything or been anything in his life, who had never denied himself, never worked, never accomplished anything – why it was that such a man as this had led captive Helen, Rachel, and now perhaps Anne. If it had been a case of great personal beauty, he could have partially accounted for it, and – scorned it. But it was not. Many a face was more regularly handsome than Heathcote's; he knew that he himself would be pronounced by the majority a handsomer, although of course older, man. But when he realized that he was going over this same old bitter ground, by a strong effort of will he stopped himself and returned to reality. Heathcote's power, whatever it was, and angry as it made him, was nevertheless a fact, and Dexter never contradicted facts. With his accurate memory, he now went back and took up Anne's last answer. "You say I believe it. It is true," he said, turning toward her (he had been sitting with his eyes cast down during this whirl of feeling); "but my belief is not founded upon prejudice, as you seem to think. It rests upon the evidence. Let us go over the evidence together: women are sometimes intuitively right, even against reason."

"I can not go over it."

But he persisted. "It would be better," he said, determined to draw the whole truth from her, if not in one way, then in another. For he realized how important it was that she should have an adviser.

She looked up and met his eyes; they were kind but unyielding. "Very well," she said, making an effort to do even this. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands: people could endure, then, more than they knew.

Dexter, not giving her a moment's delay, began immediately: his object was to rouse her and draw her out. "We will take at first simply the testimony," he said. "I have the main points here in my note-book. We will even suppose that we do not know the persons concerned, but think of them as strangers." He went over the evidence clearly and briefly. Then the theories. "Note," he said, "the difference. On one side we have a series of facts, testified to by a number of persons. On the other, a series of possibilities, testified to by no one save the prisoner himself. The defense is a theory built to fit the case, without one proof, no matter how small, as a foundation."

Anne had not stirred. Her eyes were turned away, gazing into the darkness of the garden. Dexter closed his note-book, and returned it to his pocket.

"They have advanced no further in the real trial," he said; "but you and I will now drop our rôle of strangers, and go on. We know him; we knew her. Can we think of any cause which would account for such an act? Was there any reason why Ward Heathcote would have been relieved by the death of his wife?"

Anne remained silent.

"The common idea that he wished to have sole control of her wealth will hardly, I think, be received by those who have personally known him," continued Dexter. "He never cared for money. He was, in my opinion, ostentatiously indifferent to it." Here he paused to control the tone of his voice, which was growing bitter. "I repeat – can you imagine any other reason?" he said. Still she did not answer.

"Why do you not answer? I shall begin to suspect that you do."

At this she stirred a little, and he was satisfied. He had moved her from her rigidity. Not wishing to alarm her, he went on, tentatively: "My theory of the motive you are not willing to allow; still, I consider it a possible and even probable one. For they were not happy: he was not happy. Beautiful as she was, rich as she was, I was told, when I first came eastward in the spring, soon after their marriage, that had it not been for that accident and the dangerous illness that followed, Helen Lorrington would never have been Ward Heathcote's wife."

"Who told you this?" said Anne, turning toward him.

"I did not hear it from her, but it came from her – Rachel Bannert."

"She is a traitorous woman."

"Yes; but traitors betray – the truth."

He was watching her closely; she felt it, and turned toward the window again, so that he should not see her eyes.

"Suppose that he did not love her, but had married her under the influence of pity, when her life hung by a thread; suppose that she loved him – you say she did. Can you not imagine that there might have been moments when she tormented him beyond endurance concerning his past life – who knows but his present also? She was jealous; and she had wonderful ingenuity. But I doubt if you comprehend what I mean: a woman never knows a woman as a man knows her. And Heathcote was not patient. He is a self-indulgent man – a man who has been completely spoiled."

Again he paused. Then he could not resist bringing forward something else, under any circumstances, to show her that she was of no consequence in the case compared with another person. "It is whispered, I hear, that the maid will testify that there was a motive, and a strong one, namely, a rival; that there was another woman whom Heathcote really loved, and that Helen knew this, and used the knowledge."

The formless dread which accompanied Anne began now to assume definite outline and draw nearer. She gazed at her inquisitor with eyes full of dumb distress.

He rose, and took her cold hands in his. "Child," he said, earnestly, "I beseech you tell me all. It will be so much better for you, so much safer. You are suffering intensely. I have seen it all the evening. Can you not trust me?"

She still looked at him in silence, while the tears rose, welled over, and rolled slowly down.

"Can you not trust me?" he repeated.

She shook her head.

"But as you have told me something, why not tell me all?"

"I am afraid to tell all," she whispered.

"For yourself?"

"No."

"For him, then?"

"Yes."

He clinched his hand involuntarily as he heard this answer. Her pale face and agitation were all for him, then – for Ward Heathcote!

"You are really shaken by fear," he said. "I know its signs, or rather those of dread. It is pure dread which has possession of you now. How unlike you, Anne! How unlike yourself you are at this moment!"

But she cared nothing for herself, nothing for the scorn in his voice (the jealous are often loftily scornful), and he saw that she did not.

"Whom do you fear? The maid?"

"Yes."

"What can she say?"

"I do not know; and yet – "

"Is it possible – can it be possible, Anne, that you are the person implicated, the so-called rival?"

"I do not know; and it is because I do not know that I am so much afraid," she answered, still in the same low whisper.

"But why should you take this possibility upon yourself? Ward Heathcote is no Sir Galahad, Heaven knows. Probably at this moment twenty women are trembling as you are trembling, fearing lest they be called by name, and forced forward before the world."

He spoke with anger. Anne did not contradict him, but she leaned her head upon her hand weariedly, and closed her eyes.

"How can I leave you?" he said, breaking into his old kindness again. "I ought to go, but it is like leaving a girl in the hands of torturers. If there were only some one to be with you here until all this is over!"

"There is no one. I want no one."

"You puzzle me deeply," he said, walking up and down with troubled anxiety. "I can form no opinion as to whether your dread is purely imaginary or not, because you tell me nothing. If you were an ordinary woman, I should not give much thought to what you say – or rather to what you look, for you say nothing; but you are not ordinary. You are essentially brave, and you have fewer of the fantastic, irrelevant fancies of women than any girl I have ever known. There must be something, then, to fear, since you fear so intensely. I like you, Anne; I respect you. I admire you too, more than you know. You are so utterly alone in this trouble that I can not desert you. And I will not."

"Do not stay on my account."

"But I shall. That is, in the city; it is decided. Here is my address. Promise that if you should wish help or advice in any way – mark that I say, in any way – you will send me instantly a dispatch."

"I will."

"There is nothing more that I can do for you?"

"Nothing."

"And nothing that you will tell me? Think well, child."

"Nothing."

Then, as it was late, he made her renew her promise, and went away.

The next morning the package of newspapers was brought to Anne from the station at an early hour as usual. She was in her own room waiting for them. She watched the boy coming along the road, and felt a sudden thrill of anger when he stopped to throw a stone at a bird. To stop with that in his hand! Old Nora brought up the package. Anne took it, and closed the door. Then she sat down to read.

Half an hour later, Gregory Dexter received a telegraphic dispatch from Lancaster. "Come immediately. A. D."