Agatha Webb (5 page)

"Well, well. Why do you stop? Am I so hard to talk to that the
words will not leave your lips?"

"I have promised my father I will never marry you. He feels that
he has grounds of complaint against you, and as I owe him
everything—"

He stopped amazed. She was looking at him intently, that same low
laugh still on her lips.

"Tell the truth," she whispered. "I know to what extent you
consider your father's wishes. You think you ought not to marry me
after what took place last night. Frederick, I like you for this
evidence of consideration on your part, but do not struggle too
relentlessly with your conscience. I can forgive much more in you
than you think, and if you really love me—"

"Stop! Let us understand each other." He had turned mortally pale,
and met her eyes with something akin to alarm. "What do you allude
to in speaking of last night? I did not know there was anything
said by us in our talk together—"

"I do not allude to our talk."

"Or—or in the one dance we had—"

"Frederick, a dance is innocent."

The word seemed to strike him with the force of a blow.

"Innocent," he repeated, "innocent?" becoming paler still as the
full weight of her meaning broke gradually upon him.

"I followed you into town," she whispered, coming closer, and
breathing the words into his ear. "But what I saw you do there
will not prevent me from obeying you if you say: 'Follow me
wherever I go, Amabel; henceforth our lives are one.'"

"My God!"

It was all he said, but it seemed to create a gulf between them.
In the silence that followed, the evil spirit latent beneath her
beauty began to make itself evident even in the smile which no
longer called into view the dimples which belong to guileless
mirth, while upon his face, after the first paralysing effect of
her words had passed, there appeared an expression of manly
resistance that betrayed a virtue which as yet had never appeared
in his selfish and altogether reckless life.

That this was more than a passing impulse he presently made
evident by lifting his hand and pushing her slowly back.

"I do not know what you saw me do," said he; "but whatever it was,
it can make no difference in our relations."

Her whisper, which had been but a breath before, became scarcely
audible.

"I did not pause at the gate you entered," said she. "I went in
after you."

A gasp of irresistible feeling escaped him, but he did not take
his eyes from her face.

"It was a long time before you came out," she went on, "but
previous to that time the shade of a certain window was thrust
aside, and—"

"Hush!" he commanded, in uncontrollable passion, pressing his hand
with impulsive energy against her mouth. "Not another word of
that, or I shall forget you are a woman or that I have ever loved
you."

Her eyes, which were all she had remaining to plead with, took on
a peculiar look of quiet satisfaction, and power. Seeing it, he
let his hand fall and for the first time began to regard her with
anything but a lover's eyes.

"I was the only person in sight at that time," she continued. "You
have nothing to fear from the world at large."

"Fear?"

The word made its own echo; she had no need to emphasise it even
by a smile. But she watched him as it sunk into his consciousness
with an intentness it took all his strength to sustain. Suddenly
her bearing and expression changed. The few remains of sweetness
in her face vanished, and even the allurement which often lasts
when the sweetness is gone, disappeared in the energy which now
took possession of her whole threatening and inflexible
personality.

"Marry me," she cried, "or I will proclaim you to be the murderer
of Agatha Webb."

She had seen the death of love in his eyes.

Frederick Sutherland was a man of finer mental balance than he
himself, perhaps, had ever realised. After the first few moments
of stupefaction following the astounding alternative which had
been given him, he broke out with the last sentence she probably
expected to hear:

"What do you hope from a marriage with me, that to attain your
wishes you thus sacrifice every womanly instinct?"

She met him on his own ground.

"What do I hope?" She actually glowed with the force of her secret
desire. "Can you ask a poor girl like me, born in a tenement
house, but with tastes and ambitions such as are usually only
given to those who can gratify them? I want to be the rich Mr.
Sutherland's daughter; acknowledged or unacknowledged, the wife of
one who can enter any house in Boston as an equal. With a position
like that I can rise to anything. I feel that I have the natural
power and aptitude. I have felt it since I was a small child."

"And for that—" he began.

"And for that," she broke in, "I am quite willing to overlook a
blot on your record. Confident that you will never repeat the risk
of last night, I am ready to share the burden of your secret
through life. If you treat me well, I am sure I can make that
burden light for you."

With a quick flush and an increase of self-assertion, probably not
anticipated by her, he faced the daring girl with a desperate
resolution that showed how handsome he could be if his soul once
got control of his body.

"Woman," he cried, "they were right; you are little less than a
devil."

Did she regard it as a compliment? Her smile would seem to say so.

"A devil that understands men," she answered, with that slow dip
of her dimples that made her smile so dangerous. "You will not
hesitate long over this matter; a week, perhaps."

"I shall not hesitate at all. Seeing you as you are, makes my
course easy. You will never share any burden with me as my wife."

Still she was not abashed.

"It is a pity," she whispered; "it would have saved you such
unnecessary struggle. But a week is not long to wait. I am certain
of you then. This day week at twelve o'clock, Frederick."

He seized her by the arm, and lost to everything but his rage,
shook her with a desperate hand.

"Do you mean it?" he cried, a sudden horror showing itself in his
face, notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it.

"I mean it so much," she assured him, "that before I came home
just now I paid a visit to the copse over the way. A certain
hollow tree, where you and I have held more than one tryst,
conceals within its depths a package containing over one thousand
dollars. Frederick, I hold your life in my hands."

The grasp with which he held her relaxed; a mortal despair settled
upon his features, and recognising the impossibility of further
concealing the effect of her words upon him, he sank into a chair
and covered his face with his hands. She viewed him with an air of
triumph, which brought back some of her beauty. When she spoke it
was to say:

"If you wish to join me in Springfield before the time I have set,
well and good. I am willing that the time of our separation should
be shortened, but it must not be lengthened by so much as a day.
Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and pack my trunks."

He shuddered; her voice penetrated him to the quick.

Drawing herself up, she looked down on him with a strange mixture
of passion and elation.

"You need fear no indiscretion on my part, so long as our
armistice lasts," said she. "No one can drag the truth from me
while any hope remains of your doing your duty by me in the way I
have suggested."

And still he did not move.

"Frederick?"

Was it her voice that was thus murmuring his name? Can the tiger
snarl one moment and fawn the next?

"Frederick, I have a final word to say—a last farewell. Up to
this hour I have endured your attentions, or, let us say, accepted
them, for I always found you handsome and agreeable, if not the
master of my heart. But now it is love that I feel, love; and love
with me is no fancy, but a passion—do you hear?—a passion which
will make life a heaven or hell for the man who has inspired it.
You should have thought of this when you opposed me."

And with a look in which love and hatred contended for mastery,
she bent and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead. Next moment she
was gone.

Or so he thought. But when, after an interval of nameless recoil,
he rose and attempted to stagger from the place, he discovered
that she had been detained in the hall by two or three men who had
just come in by the front door.

"Is this Miss Page?" they were asking.

"Yes, I am Miss Page—Amabel Page" she replied with suave
politeness. "If you have any business with me, state it quickly,
for I am about to leave town."

"That is what we wish to prevent," declared a tall, thin young man
who seemed to take the lead. "Till the inquest has been held over
the remains of Mrs. Webb, Coroner Talbot wishes you to regard
yourself as a possible witness."

"Me?" she cried, with an admirable gesture of surprise and a wide
opening of her brown eyes that made her look like an astonished
child. "What have I got to do with it?"

"You pointed out a certain spot of blood on the grass, and—well,
the coroner's orders have to be obeyed, miss. You cannot leave the
town without running the risk of arrest"

"Then I will stay in it," she smiled. "I have no liking for
arrests," and the glint of her eye rested for a moment on
Frederick. "Mr. Sutherland," she continued, as that gentleman
appeared at the dining-room door, "I shall have to impose upon
your hospitality for a few days longer. These men here inform me
that my innocent interest in pointing out to you that spot of
blood on Mrs. Webb's lawn has awakened some curiosity, and that I
am wanted as a witness by the coroner."

Mr. Sutherland, with a quick stride, lessened the distance between
himself and these unwelcome intruders. "The coroner's wishes are
paramount just now," said he, but the look he gave his son was not
soon forgotten by the spectators.

There was but one topic discussed in the country-side that day,
and that was the life and character of Agatha Webb.

Her history had not been a happy one. She and Philemon had come
from Portchester some twenty or more years before to escape the
sorrows associated with their native town. They had left behind
them six small graves in Portchester churchyard; but though
evidences of their affliction were always to be seen in the
countenances of either, they had entered with so much purpose into
the life of their adopted town that they had become persons of
note there till Philemon's health began to fail, when Agatha quit
all outside work and devoted herself exclusively to him. Of her
character and winsome personality we can gather some idea from the
various conversations carried on that day from Portchester Green
to the shipyards in Sutherlandtown.

In Deacon Brainerd's cottage, the discussion was concerning
Agatha's lack of vanity; a virtue not very common at that time
among the women of this busy seaport.

"For a woman so handsome," the good deacon was saying "(and I
think I can safely call her the finest-featured woman who ever
trod these streets), she showed as little interest in dress as
anyone I ever knew. Calico at home and calico at church, yet she
looked as much of a lady in her dark-sprigged gowns as Mrs.
Webster in her silks or Mrs. Parsons in her thousand-dollar
sealskin."

As this was a topic within the scope of his eldest daughter's
intelligence she at once spoke up: "I never thought she needed to
dress so plainly. I don't believe in such a show of poverty
myself. If one is too poor to go decent, all right; but they say
she had more money than most anyone in town. I wonder who is going
to get the benefit of it?"

"Why, Philemon, of course; that is, as long as he lives. He
doubtless had the making of it."

"Is it true that he's gone clean out of his head since her death?"
interposed a neighbour who had happened in.

"So they say. I believe widow Jones has taken him into her house."

"Do you think," asked a second daughter with becoming hesitation,
"that he had anything to do with her death? Some of the neighbours
say he struck her while in one of his crazy fits, while others
declare she was killed by some stranger, equally old and almost as
infirm."

"We won't discuss the subject," objected the deacon. "Time will
show who robbed us of the greatest-hearted and most capable woman
in these parts."

"And will time show who killed Batsy?" It was a morsel of a girl
who spoke; the least one of the family, but the brightest. "I'm
sorry for Batsy; she always gave me cookies when I went to see
Mrs. Webb."

"Batsy was a good girl for a Swede," allowed the deacon's wife,
who had not spoken till now. "When she first came into town on the
spars of that wrecked ship we all remember, there was some
struggle between Agatha and me as to which of us should have her.
But I didn't like the task of teaching her the name of every pot
and pan she had to use in the kitchen, so I gave her up to Agatha;
and it was fortunate I did, for I've never been able to understand
her talk to this day."

"I could talk with her right well," lisped the little one. "She
never called things by their Swedish names unless she was worried;
and I never worried her."

"I wonder if she would have worshipped the ground under your feet,
as she did that under Agatha's?" asked the deacon, eying his wife
with just the suspicion of a malicious twinkle in his eye.

"I am not the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in town,"
retorted his wife, clicking her needles as she went on knitting.

In Mr. Sprague's house on the opposite side of the road, Squire
Fisher was relating some old tales of bygone Portchester days. "I
knew Agatha when she was a girl," he avowed. "She had the grandest
manners and the most enchanting smile of any rich or poor man's
daughter between the coast and Springfield. She did not dress in
calico then. She wore the gayest clothes her father could buy.
her, and old Jacob was not without means to make his daughter the
leading figure in town. How we young fellows did adore her, and
what lengths we went to win one of her glorious smiles! Two of us,
John and James Zabel, have lived bachelors for her sake to this
very day; but I hadn't courage enough for that; I married and"—
something between a sigh and a chuckle filled out the sentence.