The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 31

Mrs. Bobby made a scornful little gesture. "You flatter me, Sibyl,"

she said. "I'm afraid I'm not so charitable as all that. I 'took up'

Elizabeth Van Vorst, as you say, because I liked her, and for no other reason. It was for my own pleasure entirely that I asked her to stay with me, and I have never regretted it."

Mrs. Hartington gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. "I congratulate you," she said. "It was a rash action, some people thought at the time. A girl whom you knew so slightly, whose mother was such an impossible person--or at least, so they say. I don't of course," she went on, in her soft, drawling tones, "know much about it myself, but it does make all this gossip seem less extraordinary--doesn't it?"

"Why, yes, of course, that accounts for it," said Mrs. Lansdowne, looking relieved. "That sort of thing runs in families. A girl who has a queer mother is sure to be queer herself and get herself talked about."

"I never thought her very good style," some one who had not yet spoken now found courage to observe. "Her hair is so conspicuous. I never could understand why men seemed to admire her."

Mrs. Hartington raised her eye-brows. "Ah, the men!" she said, with serene scorn. "She is exactly the sort of girl who would appeal to men."

Mrs. Bobby felt that she had stayed as long as the limit of human endurance would permit. She rose to her feet, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brilliant, her voice rang out with crystal clearness. "It's hardly necessary for me to tell you," she said, "that Elizabeth Van Vorst is my most intimate friend. I love her very dearly and always shall. What her mother may have been is no affair of mine. But as for the men liking her"--she turned suddenly to Mrs. Hartington--"they do like her, Sibyl, and I think they show good taste. But if you mean the inference you seem to draw from that"--she paused and drew her breath quickly--"why, it's not very flattering, I think, to either men or women."

Mrs. Hartington gave a short little laugh. "My dear, I'm not drawing inferences one way or another. I merely stated a fact--complimentary, one might think, to your protegee. But you take things so seriously!"--She drew herself up with an air of some annoyance.

Mrs. Bobby's hands were tightly locked together inside her m.u.f.f, she faced the group appealingly, her dark eyes wandering from one to the other. "Certainly, I take this thing seriously," she said, and there was a thrill of earnestness in her voice which moved more than one of her hearers. "It's no light matter for me to hear my friend spoken of--like this. I had Elizabeth Van Vorst with me all last winter, I feel as if I knew her like my own sister. I believe in her implicitly, no matter what any one may say. And if--if some of you"--instinctively her eyes fastened upon one or two whom she felt she was carrying with her--"if you would try to think the best, give her the benefit of the doubt, show that women can stand by one another--sometimes"--Her voice faltered and she broke off suddenly; there were tears glistening in her eyes as she held out her hand to her hostess. "Forgive me, Mary,"

she said. "I don't want to make a scene. But I can't help feeling strongly, and in this case I want every one to know exactly how I feel." And with that she left the room quickly before any one could speak, yet conscious as she went of a subtle wave of sympathy, which seemed to have made itself felt since her entrance.

"But it's useless--useless," she said sadly to her husband when she got home. "You might as well try to stop the course of a torrent as fight against the world's disapproval, when it is once roused against any poor, defenceless girl. And it isn't as if she were a great personage, or even as if she were still engaged to Julian! They've nothing to gain by standing by her. Yet there were one or two, I think, even of those women this afternoon, who felt with me. And at least"--she consoled herself a little--"at least they shall see that she has friends!"

"She'll need them, poor girl. The--the inquest--I've just heard--is coming off next week." He took up a paper knife and played with it, while he stole a furtive glance at his wife. "I think you had better--prepare Elizabeth," he said.

"Prepare her?" she repeated anxiously, as he paused.

"For some confoundedly unpleasant questions! Yes. Have you the strength to tell her?" His eyes questioned her anxiously. She was white to the lips, but she met them without flinching.

"One can always find strength."

"It's confoundedly hard, I know." Bobby began to pace up and down helplessly. "You don't know how I hate to have you mixed up in all this, Eleanor," he said. "I'd give anything to have you out of it.

Wouldn't it be better for you to go abroad for awhile?"

"And desert Elizabeth? My dear Bobby, you wouldn't have me do that?"

"Well, you can't help her, you know," he urged.

"I can show that I believe in her. And, thank Heaven! social position does count for something. It may help me to fight Elizabeth's battles."

"It doesn't count for much, unfortunately, before the law."

"Not theoretically, no," said his wife, sceptically. "But practically--it counts with every one and everywhere. By the way," she added, struck with a sudden idea, "what sort of man is the District Attorney? I might ask him to dinner." And she looked prepared to send the invitation on the spot.

"My dear Eleanor, I'm afraid it's too late for that now. The thing to do now, since matters have gone so far, is to prove Elizabeth's innocence, and for that, the first step is to prepare her, so that she won't be taken unawares. Her aunts too--they must be told, I suppose.

Poor things, I believe it will kill them!"

"People don't die so easily. It would be more merciful, I sometimes think, if they did." She sat and thought for a moment. "I think I had better go there at once," she said, at last, nervously. "I couldn't sleep to-night with this hanging over my head."

And so, for the second time that day, she drove to the Van Vorsts'

apartment, feeling that her unexpected appearance in itself must prepare them for some calamity. And indeed the telling proved easier than she feared. She saw Elizabeth alone, and sat holding the girl's hand, trying by many tender circ.u.mlocutions to break the force of the blow. But Elizabeth understood almost immediately.

"They think I sent the poison--is that it?" she said, going at once to the point which her friend was approaching so carefully. "Well, that isn't so strange. Sometimes I feel," she added, wearily, and putting her hand to her head, "as if I had done it myself. I think I--I might have done it."

"Elizabeth, Elizabeth, what do you mean?"

"Because I wished it, you know," Elizabeth went on to explain quite calmly. "I was married to him, and I wished that he might die, so that no one would ever know it, I didn't tell any one but Julian--I wouldn't have told him if I could have helped it. That was the reason he gave me up--because I told him that I had been secretly married all the time. He was angry because I hadn't told him before."

"But," interrupted Mrs. Bobby, with intense anxiety, "you did tell him, at last?"

"Yes, of course I told him," said Elizabeth, in surprise. "I told him New Year's Eve. Why else should he have given me up?"

"Then," cried Mrs. Bobby, rising to her feet in her excitement, "that seems to me an unanswerable argument. If you had--had expected Paul Halleck's death, you certainly wouldn't have told Julian Gerard of your marriage. That's clear as daylight. Oh, Elizabeth, how fortunate that you told him!"

"Fortunate?" said Elizabeth, listlessly. "I don't see that it is very fortunate, since he has given me up and will never forgive me."

"But it may save you." Elizabeth looked at her blankly. "Oh, my dear child," cried Mrs. Bobby, "don't you understand that they suspect you of--of the murder?"

"You don't mean that they would put me in prison?"

Mrs. Bobby only answered by her silence. Elizabeth sat staring at her for a moment, then the color rushed into her white face, her eyes flashed. "How would they dare do that," she cried, "when I am innocent?"

"Of course you are," said Mrs. Bobby. "No one but a fool would think otherwise. And we will prove it, never fear. But you mustn't talk any more of this morbid nonsense about being guilty of his death and all that. I know what you mean well enough, but the general public doesn't understand such psychological subtleties. And besides, it's not true.

The guilty person had no thought of doing you a service--be sure of that. Paul Halleck would have died, my dear, if you had never known him. And now keep up a brave heart, Elizabeth. Your friends will stand by you, and when all this is over--happily over, you will look back upon it as a bad dream--nothing more."

Mrs. Bobby had almost talked herself into feeling the confidence she expressed; but Elizabeth listened languidly, with drooping head. All color had faded again from her face; it looked haggard, worn; her hands plucked nervously at some fringe on her gown. When she wiped her eyes at the last words, the smile she conjured up was piteous.

"It's a dream," she murmured, "that is lasting--a terribly long time."

_Chapter x.x.xII_

There is an old prison well in the heart of the city, which presents a grim, mediaeval front to the busy world outside. Elizabeth knew that it existed, but had never seen it. She did not know even where it was, till she found herself condemned to spend eight months within its walls.

This was after the inquest, when the evidence had gone as she had seen herself, very much against her. It was a curious feeling--this bewildered perception of a net closing round her, whose meshes she had woven herself. The verdict of the jury was hardly a surprise. And then they broke to her gently the fact that bail was refused, and they brought her across the Bridge of Sighs, the name of which gave her an odd little thrill, into the prison.

The inmates of The Tombs are mostly of the lowest cla.s.s. Such a prisoner as Miss Van Vorst was disconcerting to wardens and matrons alike. The situation was unprecedented, they hardly knew how to deal with it.

Elizabeth was placed in one of the ordinary cells; no other indeed was to be had. It was small and dark, and had for furniture a cot-bed, a faucet set in the wall, and one cane chair. Light and air--what there was of either--came in through the corridor, above and below the iron grating which barred the doorway. There was no window.

Elizabeth, to whom an abundance of light and air had been one of the necessities of life, who had a pa.s.sion for s.p.a.ce and luxury, for fresh, dainty surroundings, looked about her in blank dismay. Yet she said nothing. From the first she seemed to school herself to a silent stoicism, which her friends called courage and her enemies insensibility, and which may have been a combination of both. The last two months had been crowded with so many startling events, so intense, conflicting a tumult of thought and emotion, that her capacity for acute suffering was for the moment exhausted.

Yet the mere physical horror that the cell inspired her with was very great. The first time that the key was turned upon her, and she was left entirely alone, with the twilight coming on, with no power to free herself, nothing to do but wait for the matron's return, she felt as she had felt once when for some childish offence, she had been locked into a dark closet. Now as then she threw herself against the door, trying with fierce, unreasoning efforts to force the lock, uttering hoa.r.s.e cries for help. Then the door had been quickly opened, her aunts had let her out with remorseful tears, and the experiment had never been repeated. Now no help came to her, and she was left to adapt herself to the situation as best she might. The struggle left deep marks on her young face, a look in her eyes which they never afterwards lost.

There were many ways in which the prison routine was softened in her favor. Social distinctions count, as Mrs. Bobby had said, with every one and everywhere. Money is powerful, even in The Tombs. The warden and the other officials reaped in those days a harvest of gold coins from Mrs. Bobby.

A more comfortable bed, a hand-mirror, all sorts of forbidden luxuries, found their way into Elizabeth's cell. Neither warden nor matron apparently recognized their existence. She was permitted to receive her visitors alone, to have a light in her cell after dark, to walk for an hour a day in the corridor or the court. At these times she would see those other women, her fellow-prisoners, huddled together in an abject group, and feel thankful that at least she was not obliged to mingle with them. Her meals were served to her in her cell, and she could order what she wanted. Her friends sent her constantly an abundance of fruit and flowers.

The people who came to see her, and there were many of them, used to go away wondering at her calmness. They went prepared for tragedy, and Elizabeth received them as she might in her own drawing-room. They noticed no change in her, except that her head had never been held so proudly, and she had never looked so pale. But there were no confidences, no tears, no consciousness apparently of the extraordinary state of things. Even to her aunts, even to Eleanor Van Antwerp, she maintained this att.i.tude of proud reserve. They could only guess at the thoughts which lay beneath it. There were times, indeed, when she did not think, when her brain would seem dazed. In those days she would read eagerly all the books that people brought her; read them through from beginning to end, but she had never any idea of what they were about.