A Williams Anthology Part 13

Mrs. Trent rolled up her knitting in a napkin, picked a few stray bits of yarn from her black dress, and stepped to the window. She looked out across the valley toward the Cleft to see if perchance the clouds would open enough to permit her a view of the Peak. Not once, but many times that day had she arisen from her work to search for a glimpse of the mountain, but every time she had failed.

"No, it's hidden, still hidden," she murmured half aloud. "It is hard to be shut up here with my thoughts,--with such thoughts. I wish the clouds would lift and let me see the Peak. Then I am sure that things would not seem so dark. If I could only get one glimpse, I would feel almost, yes, almost as though Doctor McMurray had been here and had told me he was sorry."

She stood looking out the window for a time, but the clouds only gathered more heavily in the Cleft and the Peak remained shrouded in the mist. At last she turned wearily back toward her chair, and was about to resume her knitting when her ear caught the sound of wheels pausing before the house. She hastened across the room toward the door and threw it open with a gesture of fear, as though she had been antic.i.p.ating the coming of unwelcome visitors and now had reason to suppose that they had arrived. The tremor of suspense, however, quickly pa.s.sed, for she saw outside no less a person than Doctor McMurray himself.

"Doctor," she called, "put your horse in the barn and come in. It does my heart good to see you."

Presently the door opened and the old minister's face appeared, that face which had looked in at every house in the valley whenever trouble brooded there, and always had brought with it good cheer and hope for now close upon half-a-century.

"A wet day, Mrs. Trent, a wet day. But seems to me there are signs of clearing. It is always much pleasanter to look for fair weather than for foul, don't you think so?"

Mrs. Trent nodded.

"Doctor McMurray," she said, "I was almost afraid to go to the door when I heard you drive up; I thought the lawyers might be coming already."

"The lawyers?" he echoed, "What, can they be troubling you again?"

"Yes, I got a letter from the district attorney's office yesterday saying that he would send a couple of men out to-day."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Trent, for I know it will be hard for you to go over the thing again. I had hoped that when your husband's trial was over they would let you alone. Now that poor Jacob has paid the biggest price a man can pay, it seems that common decency ought to keep them from worrying you about the matter any more."

"Well," she said, clasping her hands and looking absently out the window, "I presume they want to make quite sure. Mrs. Withey's case is coming up again the first of the week, you know, and there must be no mistake."

"But I can't see how there can be any mistake," exclaimed the doctor.

"At Jacob's trial everything was so clear, his guilt was so fixed, that there seemed no chance for a mistake. Mrs. Trent, it looked to me, prejudiced in favor of your husband as I was, that there could be no doubt that Jacob gave old Mr. Withey the a.r.s.enic and that Mrs.

Withey was his equally guilty accomplice. I think this second trial must only be a repet.i.tion of the first, and that Mrs. Withey must be found the murderess of Andrew Withey, just as Jacob Trent was proven murderer."

Mrs. Trent leaned forward in her chair. Her hands were clenched and every muscle in her frail body was drawn tense. The look in her eyes startled the good doctor, and, thinking that he had recalled too harshly the ugliness of her husband's crime, hastened to make amends.

"Mrs. Trent," he said, "I am sorry that I spoke so. It was cruel of me."

"No, no," the woman answered thickly, "I am used to that, it doesn't shock me to hear so much about Jacob now. But tell me, doctor, tell me, are you sure she will not get off? Will they treat her as they did Jacob?"

"What, Mrs. Trent, you surely wouldn't wish trouble to any fellow creature if it could be avoided, would you?"

"Doctor McMurray," replied Mrs. Trent in a very low voice which seemed to come from her inmost soul, "Doctor McMurray, that woman robbed me of my husband, of Jacob, and then led him to a murderer's grave. That is so. Do you know, now that so many weeks have gone by since they took Jacob away, sometimes I feel that he is true to me somewhere, and that she, that woman, was the one who led him on to do wrong. You ask me if I would see any fellow creature suffer. I answer no; but I say too that that woman has no claim to be fellow creature to any human being. She robbed me of my husband."

For a time the two sat in silence. The rain continued to drip, drip from the eaves, and the Cleft was still clogged with mist. Then the old doctor broke the silence.

"I am afraid we do wrong, Mrs. Trent, in brooding over these troubles of ours. Heaven knows you have provocation. There seems to be no doubt but that your husband gave a.r.s.enic to old Mr. Withey, and it seems the more grievous when we think that the natural ailments of the old man must soon have hurried him across the Great River in any case. It is also true that he did it for the love of a woman whose youth and beauty he conceived to have won him heart and soul. But, Mrs. Trent, it is also a fact that we are here to live above these things, hard as they may seem, and to forgive those who do us ill."

Mrs. Trent rose from her chair and stepped toward the window which looked out toward the Peak. Her hands, which she had folded behind her back, worked convulsively.

"The Peak," she said at last. "The Peak is covered with clouds; I cannot see. Forgive--forgive her? All is cloudy, I cannot see."

Doctor McMurray, being no common man, said not a word. He softly rose and took his stand beside Mrs. Trent at the window. For some time the two stood looking out over the valley, watching the heavy, leaden clouds as they banked themselves up against the opposite hillside. The rain continued to trickle from the eaves, the only sound audible above the breathing of the man and woman. At last Doctor McMurray broke the silence.

"It seems to me the clouds aren't lying quite so low on the hills as they were. I wouldn't be surprised if it was going to clear up."

Mrs. Trent looked at the old man for a moment, and saw his meaning.

"Perhaps," she said doubtfully, "perhaps."

Doctor McMurray moved away from the window and began to draw on his overcoat.

"Why, you're not going, doctor?" exclaimed Mrs. Trent with a note of distress in her voice, as her eye took in his action.

"Yes, I'm sorry, Mrs. Trent, but I must look in at old Mr. Gebhart's on the way down. The poor man has stomach trouble, I believe--they say it's just the same thing that Mr. Withey had--and I think he'll be looking for me."

"Doctor, you're so kind," Mrs. Trent interjected. "You're always keeping an eye out for the unfortunate. But look here. I've got some medicine out here in the pantry, some Epsom salts, which they used to come and get for old Mr. Withey. They used to tell me it did him a lot of good. I wish you could wait till I get a little for Mr. Gebhart."

Mrs. Trent hastened from the room, and Doctor McMurray heard her moving pans and bottles on the shelves as though she were in search of the medicine. Suddenly the sound ceased; he waited a minute or two, pacing uneasily up and down the room, with the thought of the sick old man heavy upon his mind. At last he called:

"Mrs. Trent, can't I help you? Don't trouble if you can't find it easily."

No answer reached his ears for a moment. Then Mrs. Trent emerged from the pantry walking unsteadily, as though she carried a terrific weight. Doctor McMurray was at her side in an instant, and led her to a chair.

"Tell me," he urged, "what is it? What is the trouble?"

Mrs. Trent covered her face with her hands, and her slender figure bent silently before the strength of her emotion.

"Look," she moaned at last; "go and look for yourself. There are two of them, two."

Doctor McMurray obeyed. He went into the pantry, and there on a shelf stood two wide-mouthed bottles, very much alike save that one had never been opened. He looked at them in silent wonderment, not knowing for the instant what message they conveyed. He picked them up and read the labels; then he had an inkling of what they meant, for one was marked "a.r.s.enic," the other "Epsom Salts." He went back to Mrs. Trent.

"You think there has been a mistake?" he said softly.

Mrs. Trent raised her head from her hands. Her voice was strained and unnatural as she answered:

"I know there has been a mistake, and I know that I made it."

"Tell me why."

"It is very simple. They sent up from Mr. Withey's that last night for some Epsom salts in a great hurry. I knew there must be some great need, so I rushed to the pantry. Jacob wasn't at home. I reached to the top shelf and pulled down a bottle, one of those bottles. In my hurry I didn't look at the label, but poured the little white crystals out in a paper, and they took them away. Then I put the bottle back in its place and went on with my work. In the morning I heard Mr. Withey was dead."

"But the a.r.s.enic--the a.r.s.enic," interposed the doctor. "How did it get there?"

"Heaven knows; you remember Jacob used to get it once in a while to keep his horses in condition. I presume he got a fresh bottle of it about the same time I got some more Epsom salts, and they were both put up there on the top shelf together. It is all too plain. I got the bottles mixed and opened the wrong one."

"And so Jacob was innocent?"

"Yes, and I could have saved him if I had known in time. Oh, Jacob, Jacob," she moaned, compressing a world of remorse into the words.

"And it was my mistake--my mistake!"

"Then Mrs. Withey is innocent, too," said Doctor McMurray. "Don't you make it out so?"

Mrs. Trent looked up sharply. It seemed as though she had for the moment forgotten her lesser trouble in the new consciousness of the greater. The mention of the other woman's name brought back all the profound sense of wrong which she knew she had suffered at her hands.

"Mrs. Withey--innocent!" she gasped.