Woolson Constance Fenimore
Anne: A Novel

CHAPTER XXXIX

 
"God made him; therefore let him pass for a man."
 

– Shakspeare.

When Miss Lois returned, and saw Anne's face, she was herself stirred to excitement. "You have seen him!" she said, in a whisper.

"Yes. He is the murderer: I feel it."

"Did he say 'gold'?"

"He did."

They sat down on the couch together, and in whispers Anne told all. Then they looked at each other.

"We must work as lightly as thistle-down," said Miss Lois, "or we shall lose him. He was not in the village to-day, and as he was not, I thought it safer not to inquire about him. I am glad now that I did not. But you are in a high fever, dear child. This suspense must be brought to an end, or it will kill you." She put her arms round Anne and kissed her fondly – an unusual expression of feeling from Miss Lois, who had been brought up in the old-fashioned rigidly undemonstrative New England manner. And the girl put her head down upon her old friend's shoulder and clung to her. But she could not weep; the relief of tears was not yet come.

In the morning they saw the fisherman at the foot of the meadow, and watched him through the blinds, breathlessly. He was so much and so important to them that it seemed as if they must be the same to him. But he was only bringing a string of fish to sell. He drew up his dug-out on the bank, and came toward the house with a rolling step, carrying his fish.

"There's a man here with some fish, that was ordered, he says, by somebody from here," said a voice on the stairs. "Was it you, Mrs. Young?"

"Yes. Come in, Mrs. Blackwell – do. My niece ordered them: you know they're considered very good for an exhausted brain. Perhaps I'd better go down and look at them myself. And, by-the-way, who is this man?"

"It's Sandy Croom; he lives up near the pond."

"Yes, we met him up that way. Is he a German?"

"There's Dutch blood in him, I reckon, as there is in most of the people about here who are not Marylanders," said Mrs. Blackwell, who was a Marylander.

"He's a curious-looking creature," pursued Mrs. Young, as they descended the stairs. "Is he quite right in his mind?"

"Some think he isn't; but others say he's sharper than we suppose. He drinks, though."

By this time they were in the kitchen, and Mrs. Young went out to the porch to receive and pay for the fish, her niece Ruth silently following. Croom took off his old hat and made a backward scrape with his foot by way of salutation; his small head was covered with a mat of boyish-looking yellow curls, which contrasted strangely with his red face.

"Here's yer fish," he said, holding them out toward Anne.

But she could not take them: she was gazing, fascinated, at his hand – that broad short left hand which haunted her like a horrible phantom day and night. She raised her handkerchief to her lips in order to conceal, as far as possible, the horror she feared her face must betray.

"You never could abide a fishy smell, Ruth," said Mrs. Young, interposing. She paid the fisherman, and asked whether he fished in the winter. He said "no," but gave no reason. He did not, as she had hoped, pronounce the desired word. Then, after another gaze at Anne, he went away, but turned twice to look back before he reached the end of the garden.

"It can not be that he suspects!" murmured Anne.

"No; it's your face, child. Happy or unhappy, you can not help having just the same eyes, hair, and skin, thank the Lord!"

They went upstairs and watched him from the window; he pushed off his dug-out, got in, and paddled toward the village.

"More whiskey!" said Miss Lois, sitting down and rubbing her forehead. "I wish, Ruth Young – I devoutly wish that I knew what it is best to do now!"

"Then you think with me?" said Anne, eagerly.

"By no means. There isn't a particle of certainty. But – I don't deny that there is a chance. The trouble is that we can hardly stir in the matter without arousing his suspicion. If he had lived in the village among other people, it would not have been difficult; but, all alone in that far-off cabin – "

Anne clasped her hands suddenly. "Let us send for Père Michaux!" she said. "There was a picture of the Madonna in his cabin – he is a Roman Catholic. Let us send for Père Michaux."

They gazed at each other in excited silence. Miss Lois was the first to speak. "I'm not at all sure but that you have got hold of the difficulty by the right handle at last, Anne," she said, slowly, drawing a long audible breath. It was the first time she had used the name since their departure from New York.

And the letter was written immediately.

"It's a long journey for a small chance," said the elder woman, surveying it as it lay sealed on the table. "Still, I think he will come."

"Yes, for humanity's sake," replied Anne.

"I don't know about humanity," replied her companion, huskily; "but he will come for yours. Let us get out in the open air; I'm perfectly tired out by this everlasting whispering. It would be easier to roar."

The letter was sent. Four days for it to go, four days for the answer to return, one day for chance. They agreed not to become impatient before the tenth day.

But on the ninth came, not a letter, but something better – Père Michaux in person.

They were in the fields at sunset, at some distance from the house, when Anne's eyes rested upon him, walking along the country road in his old robust fashion, on his way to the farm-house. She ran across the field to the fence, calling his name. Miss Lois followed, but more slowly; her mind was in a turmoil regarding his unexpected arrival, and the difficulty of making him comprehend or conform to the net-work of fable she had woven round their history.

The old priest gave Anne his blessing; he was much moved at seeing her again. She held his hand in both of her own, and could scarcely realize that it was he, her dear old island friend, standing there in person beside her.

"Dear, dear Père Michaux, how good you are to come!" she said, incoherently, the tears filling her eyes, half in sorrow, half in joy.

Miss Lois now came up and greeted him. "I am glad to see you," she said. Then, in the same breath: "Our names, Father Michaux, are Young; Young – please remember."

"How good you are to come!" said Anne again, the weight on her heart lightened for the moment as she looked into the clear, kind, wise old eyes that met her own.

"Not so very good," said Père Michaux, smiling. "I have been wishing to see you for some time, and I think I should have taken the journey before long in any case. Vacations are due me; it is years since I have had one, and I am an old man now."

"You will never be old," said the girl, affectionately.

"Young is the name," repeated Miss Lois, with unconscious appositeness – "Deborah and Ruth Young."

"I am glad at least that I am not too old to help you, my child," answered Père Michaux, paying little heed to the elder woman's anxious voice.

They were still standing by the road-side. Père Michaux proposed that they should remain in the open air while the beautiful hues of the sunset lasted, and they therefore returned to the field, and sat down under an elm-tree. Under ordinary circumstances, Miss Lois would have strenuously objected to this sylvan indulgence, having peculiarly combative feelings regarding dew; but this evening the maze of doubt in which she was wandering as to whether or not Père Michaux would stay in her web made dew a secondary consideration. Remaining in the fields would at least give time.

Père Michaux was as clear-headed and energetic as ever. After the first few expressions of gladness and satisfaction, it was not long before he turned to Anne, and spoke of the subject which lay before them. "Tell me all," he said. "This is as good a time and place as any we could have, and there should be, I think, no delay."

But though he spoke to Anne, it was Miss Lois who answered: it would have been simply impossible for her not to take that narrative into her own hands.

He listened to the tale with careful attention, not interrupting her many details with so much as a smile or a shrug. This was very unlike his old way with Miss Lois, and showed more than anything else could have done his absorbed interest in the story.

"It is the old truth," he said, after the long stream of words had finally ceased. "Regarding the unravelling of mysteries, women seem sometimes endowed with a sixth sense. A diamond is lost on a turnpike. A man goes along the turnpike searching for it. A woman, searching for it also, turns vaguely off into a field, giving no logical reason for her course, and – finds it."

But while he talked, his mind was in reality dwelling upon the pale girl beside him, the young girl in whom he had felt such strong interest, for whom he had involuntarily cherished such high hope in those early days on the island.

He knew of her testimony at the trial; he had not been surprised. What he had prophesied for her had come indeed. But not so fortunately or so happily as he had hoped. He had saved her from Erastus Pronando for this! Was it well done? He roused himself at last, perceiving that Anne was noticing his abstraction; her eyes were fixed upon him with anxious expectation.

"I must go to work in my own way," he said, stroking her hair. "One point, however, I have already decided: you must leave this neighborhood immediately. I wish you had never come."

"But she can not be separated from me," said Miss Lois; "and of course I shall be necessary in the search —I must be here."

"I do not see that there is any necessity at present," replied Père Michaux. "You have done all you could, and I shall work better, I think, alone." Then, as the old quick anger flashed from her eyes, he turned to Anne. "It is on your account, child," he said. "I must make you go. I know it is like taking your life from you to send you away now. But if anything comes of this – if your woman's blind leap into the dark proves to have been guided by intuition, the lime-light of publicity will instantly be turned upon this neighborhood, and you could not escape discovery. Your precautions, or rather those of our good friend Miss Lois, have availed so far: you can still depart in their shadow unobserved. Do so, then, while you can. My first wish is – can not help being – that you should escape. I would rather even have the clew fail than have your name further connected with the matter."

"This is what we get by applying to a man," said Miss Lois, in high indignation. "Always thinking of evil!"

"Yes, men do think of it. But Anne will yield to my judgment, will she not?"

"I will do as you think best," she answered. But no color rose in her pale face, as he had expected; the pressing danger and the fear clothed the subject with a shroud.

Miss Lois did not hide her anger and disappointment. Yet she would not leave Anne. And therefore the next morning Mrs. Young and her niece, with health much improved by their sojourn in the country, bade good-by to their hostess, and went southward in the little stage on their way back to "Washington."

Père Michaux was not seen at the farm-house at all; he had returned to the village from the fields, and had taken rooms for a short sojourn at the Timloe hotel.

The "Washington," in this instance, was a small town seventy miles distant; here Mrs. Young and her niece took lodgings, and began, with what patience they could muster, their hard task of waiting.

As for Père Michaux, he went fishing.

EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF A SUMMER FISHERMAN

"I have labored hard, Anne – harder than ever before in my life. I thought I knew what patience was, in my experience with my Indians and half-breeds. I never dreamed of its breadth until now! For my task has been the hard one of winning the trust of a trustless mind – trustless, yet crafty; of subduing its ever-rising reasonless suspicion; of rousing its nearly extinct affections; of touching its undeveloped, almost dead, conscience, and raising it to the point of confession. I said to myself that I would do all this in sincerity; that I would make myself do it in sincerity; that I would teach the poor creature to love me, and having once gained his warped affection, I would assume the task of caring for him as long as life lasted. If I did this in truth and real earnestness I might succeed, as the missionaries of my Church succeed, with the most brutal savages, because they are in earnest. Undertaking this, of course I also accepted the chance that all my labor, regarding the hope that you have cherished, might be in vain, and that this poor bundle of clay might not be, after all, the criminal we seek. Yet had it been so, my care of him through life must have been the same; having gained his confidence, I could never have deserted him while I lived. Each day I have labored steadily; but often I have advanced so slowly that I seemed to myself not to advance at all.

"I began by going to the pond to fish. We met daily. At first I did not speak; I allowed him to become accustomed to my presence. It was a long time before I even returned his glance of confused respect and acquaintance as our boats passed near each other, for he had at once recognized the priest. I built my foundations with exactest care and patience, often absenting myself in order to remove all suspicion of watchfulness or regularity from his continually suspicious mind; for suspicion, enormously developed, is one of his few mental powers. I had to make my way through its layers as a minute blood-vessel penetrates the cumbrous leathern hide of the rhinoceros.

"I will not tell you all the details now; but at last, one morning, by a little chance event, my long, weary, and apparently unsuccessful labor was crowned with success. He became attached to me. I suppose in all his poor warped life before no one had ever shown confidence in him or tried to win his affection.

"The next step was not so difficult. I soon learned that he had a secret. In his ignorant way, he is a firm believer in the terrors of eternal punishment, and having become attached to me, I could see that he was debating in his own mind whether or not to confide it to me as a priest, and obtain absolution. I did not urge him; I did not even invite his confidence. But I continued faithful to him, and I knew that in time it would come. It did. You are right, Anne; he is the murderer.

"It seems that by night he is tormented by superstitious fear. He is not able to sleep unless he stupefies himself with liquor, because he expects to see his victim appear and look at him with her hollow eyes. To rid himself of this haunting terror, he told all to me under the seal of the confessional. And then began the hardest task of all.

"For as a priest I could not betray him (and I should never have done so, Anne, even for your sake), and yet another life was at stake. I told him with all the power, all the eloquence, I possessed, that his repentance would never be accepted, that he himself would never be forgiven, unless he rescued by a public avowal the innocent man who was suffering in his place. And I gave him an assurance also, which must be kept even if I have to go in person to the Governor, that, in case of public avowal, his life should be spared. His intellect is plainly defective. If Miss Teller, Mr. Heathcote, and the lawyers unite in an appeal for him, I think it will be granted.

"It has been, Anne, very hard, fearfully hard, to bring him to the desired point; more than once I have lost heart. Yet never have I used the lever of real menace, and I wish you to know that I have not. At last, thanks be to the eternal God, patience has conquered. Urged by the superstition which consumes him, he consented to repeat to the local officials, in my presence and under my protection, the confession he had made to me, and to give up the watch and rings, which have lain all this time buried in the earth behind his cabin, he fearing to uncover them until a second crop of grass should be green upon his victim's grave, lest she should appear and take them from him! He did this in order to be delivered in this world and the next, and he will be delivered; for his crime was a brute one, like that of the wolf who slays the lamb.

"I shall see you before long, my dear child; but you will find me worn and old. This has been the hardest toil of my whole life."

Père Michaux did not add that his fatigue of body and mind was heightened by a painful injury received at the hands of the poor wretch he was trying to help. Unexpectedly one morning Croom had attacked him with a billet of wood, striking from behind, and without cause, save that he coveted the priest's fishing-tackle, and, in addition, something in the attitude of the defenseless white-haired old man at that moment tempted him, as a lasso-thrower is tempted by a convenient chance position of cattle. The blow, owing to a fortunate movement of Père Michaux at the same instant, was not mortal, but it disabled the old man's shoulder and arm. And perceiving this, Croom had fled. But what had won his brute heart was the peaceful appearance of the priest at his cabin door early the next morning, where the fisherman had made all ready for flight, and his friendly salutation. "Of course I knew it was all an accident, Croom," he said; "that you did not mean it. And I have come out to ask if you have not something you can recommend to apply to the bruise. You people who live in the woods have better balms than those made in towns; and besides, I would rather ask your help than apply to a physician, who might ask questions." He entered the cabin as he spoke, took off his hat, sat down, and offered his bruised arm voluntarily to the hands that had struck the blow. Croom, frightened, brought out a liniment, awkwardly assisted the priest in removing his coat, and then, as the old man sat quietly expectant, began to apply it. As he went on he regained his courage: evidently he was not to be punished. The bruised flesh appealed to him, and before he knew it he was bandaging the arm almost with affection. The priest's trust had won what stood in the place of a heart: it was so new to him to be trusted. This episode of the injured arm, more than anything else, won in the end the confession.

EXTRACT FROM THE NEW YORK "ZEUS."

"Even the story of the last great battle was eclipsed in interest in certain circles of this city yesterday by the tidings which were flashed over the wires from a remote little village in Pennsylvania. Our readers will easily recall the trial of Captain Ward Heathcote on the charge of murder, the murder of his own wife. The evidence against the accused was close, though purely circumstantial. The remarkable incidents of the latter part of the trial have not been forgotten. The jury were unable to agree, and the case went over to the November term.

"The accused, though not convicted, has not had the sympathy of the public. Probably eight out of ten among those who read the evidence have believed him guilty. But yesterday brought the startling intelligence that human judgment has again been proven widely at fault, that the real murderer is in custody, and that he has not only confessed his guilt, but also restored the rings and watch, together with the missing towel. The chain of links is complete.

"The criminal is described as a creature of uncouth appearance, in mental capacity deficient, though extraordinarily cunning. He spent the small amount of money in the purse, but was afraid to touch the rings and watch until a second crop of grass should be growing upon his victim's grave, lest she should appear and take them from him! It is to ignorant superstitious terror of this kind that we owe the final capture of this grotesque murderer.

"His story fills out the missing parts of the evidence, and explains the apparent participation of the accused to have been but an intermingling of personalities. After Captain Heathcote had gone down the outside stairway with the two towels in his pocket, this man, Croom, who was passing the end of the garden at the time, and had seen him come out by the light from the lamp within, stole up the same stairway in order to peer into the apartment, partly from curiosity, partly from the thought that there might be something there to steal. He supposed there was no one in the room, but when he reached the window and peeped through a crack in the old blind, he saw that there was some one – a woman asleep. In his caution he had consumed fifteen or twenty minutes in crossing the garden noiselessly and ascending the stairway, and during this interval Mrs. Heathcote had fallen asleep. The light from the lamp happened to shine full on the diamonds in her rings as they lay, together with her purse and watch, on the bureau, and he coveted the unexpected booty as soon as his eyes fell upon it. Quick as thought he drew open the blind, and crept in on his hands and knees, going straight toward the bureau; but ere he could reach it the sleeper stirred. He had not intended murder, but his brute nature knew no other way, and in a second the deed was done. Then he seized the watch, purse, and rings, went out as he had come, through the window, closing the blind behind him, and stole down the stairway in the darkness. The man is left-handed. It will be remembered that this proved left-handedness of the murderer was regarded as a telling point against Captain Heathcote, his right arm being at the time disabled, and supported by a sling.

"Croom went through the grass meadow to the river-bank, where his boat was tied, and hastily hiding his spoil under the seat, was about to push off, when he was startled by a slight sound, which made him think that another boat was approaching. Stealing out again, he moved cautiously toward the noise, but it was only a man bathing at some distance down the stream, the stillness of the night having made his movements in the water audible. Wishing to find out if the bather were any one he knew, Croom, under cover of the darkness, spoke to him from the bank, asking some chance question. The voice that replied was that of a stranger; still, to make all sure, Croom secreted himself at a short distance, after pretending to depart by the main road, and waited. Presently the bather passed by, going homeward; Croom, very near him, kneeling beside a bush, was convinced by the step and figure that it was no one he knew, that it was not one of the villagers or neighboring farmers. After waiting until all was still, he went to the place where the man had bathed, and searched with his hands on the sand and grass to see if he had not dropped a cigar or stray coin or two: this petty covetousness, when he had the watch and diamonds, betrays the limited nature of his intelligence. He found nothing save the two towels which Captain Heathcote had left behind; he took these and went back to his boat. There, on the shore, the sound of a dog's sudden bark alarmed him; he dropped one of the towels, could not find it among the reeds, and, without waiting longer, pushed off his boat and paddled up the stream toward home. This singular creature, who was bold enough to commit murder, yet afraid to touch his booty for fear of rousing a ghost, has been living on as usual all this time, within a mile or two of the village where his crime was committed, pursuing his daily occupation of fishing, and mixing with the villagers as formerly, without betraying his secret or attracting toward himself the least suspicion. His narrow but remarkable craft is shown in the long account he gives of the intricate and roundabout ways he selected for spending the money he had stolen. The purse itself, together with the watch, rings, and towel, he buried under a tree behind his cabin, where they have lain undisturbed until he himself unearthed them, and delivered them to the priest.

"For this notable confession was obtained by the influence of one of a body of men vowed to good works, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. Croom was of the same faith, after his debased fashion, and in spite of his weak mind (perhaps on account of it) a superstitious, almost craven, believer.

"The presence of this rarely intelligent and charitable priest in Timloesville at this particular time may be set down as one of these fortunate chances with which a some what unfortunate world is occasionally blessed. Resting after arduous labor elsewhere and engaged in the rural amusement of fishing, this kind-hearted old man noticed the degraded appearance and life of this poor waif of humanity, and in a generous spirit of charity set himself to work to enlighten and instruct him, as much as was possible during the short period of his stay. In this he was successful far beyond his expectation, far beyond his conception, like a laborer ploughing a field who comes upon a vein of gold. He has not only won this poor wretch to repentance, but has also cleared from all suspicion of the darkest crime on the record of crimes the clouded fame of a totally innocent man.

"Never was there a weightier example of the insufficiency of what is called sufficient evidence, and while we, the public, should be deeply glad that an innocent man has been proven innocent, we should also be covered with confusion for the want of perspicacity displayed in the general prejudgment of this case, where minds seem, sheep-like, to have followed each other, without the asking of a question. The people of a rural neighborhood are so convinced of the guilt of the person whom they in their infallibility have arrested that they pay no heed to other possibilities of the case. Cui bono! And their wise-acre belief spreads abroad in its brightest hues to the press – to the world. It is the real foundation upon which all the evidence rested.

"A child throws a stone. Its widening ripples stretch across a lake, and break upon far shores. A remote and bucolic community cherishes a surmise, and a continent accepts it. The nineteenth century is hardly to be congratulated upon such indolent inanity, such lambent laxity, as this."