The Crime of Henry Vane: A Study with a Moral by Frederic Jesup Stimson - HTML preview

XXV.

SHE came back to the city in November, but in the last of the month again Vane persuaded her to go to Newport and spend a week when he could be there all the time. She had an old aunt there at whose house she visited; Vane had his permanent lodgings; and this was before the time when many people stayed there through the winter. Vane had urged her to let him meet her at the southern extremity of the island, where the long ledges of rock run out to the reef; but sometimes she would bid him walk thither with her, and would even seem to like to have the notice of the town. They had given up their reading by this time, and their small talk had long since ceased. Early in the autumn they had begun with the Vita Nuova; but even Dante’s words had seemed weak to him, and after a few days the books had been thrown aside. She had not urged him to go on with them. Every day, rain or storm, this late week in autumn, they would skirt the cliffs, by the gardens with a few geraniums or pansies still drooping in the trim parterres, and go far out along the southern coves and beaches, where the full pulse of the Atlantic rolled in from the Indies. Vane had tried every day to win the final word; but all his passion had not done more than force her to seek refuge in silence. This last day she had opened her lips once or twice to speak, after a long pause, and then pressed them again together. Vane always walked a yard or two from her side, and looked at her fairly when he spoke. She would not sit down with him that day; so they went on, mile after mile, along a still, gray sea. The sky was cloudy, the waters had an oily look; and the waves were convex and smooth until they broke, creaming about the sharp rocks. Vane made another trial, just before they left the ocean to turn inland. She seemed to feel that she ought to speak, then, but yet could only look at him with her large blue eyes, the pupils slightly dilated. At last, just as she was leaving him, “Come to see me, in a month, in New York,” she said.

Vane went back that night and kept himself very busy. He heard little from Miss Thomas during the time except that she had not returned from Newport. She would never write to him since the June last past, though he had often begged her to do so. On the afternoon before Christmas Eve, at five o’clock, he called at her house. The room was just as he remembered it the year before—if anything, a little more shabby. She was standing alone as if she expected him. She was dressed in a gown that he remembered, and looked younger and more like her old self than she had seemed at Newport. She was smiling as he entered, but though the smile did not enter her eyes, they were not deep. She held something in her hand, which, as Vane approached, she extended to him. “I want to give you back your handkerchief,” she said. “I have felt that I ought to for a long time. I wanted to do so at Newport, but I could not bring myself to do it then.”

Vane stopped in his walk to look at her. “You mean that you love some one else?”

Miss Thomas bent her head a hair’s breadth.

“Yes,” said she, simply.

“Who is it?”

“Mr. Ten Eyck.”

“Are you engaged to him?”

“No.”

“Have you told him?”

“No.”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“In a day or two.”

Vane gave a heavy sigh. Miss Thomas sank in a chair, looking at the fire, the handkerchief still in her hand.

“I thank you for telling me first,” said Vane. He turned to go.

“You have forgotten your handkerchief,” said she. Vane went back to get it, avoiding the touch of her hand. Then he turned again, and the outer door closed behind him, Miss Thomas still looking at the fire. It was a rainy night and there had been snow previously. As Vane crossed Fifth Avenue he threw the handkerchief into a pool of mire.

He went to his lodgings to shave and dress for dinner. His hand trembled, and it seemed to him that he was very angry. He took dinner at his club, and smoked a cigar afterward with a friend, and drank a bottle of Burgundy.

“What has become of Ten Eyck this last month?” asked Vane, carelessly, in the course of the evening.

“He’s been at Newport lately,” said the other. “He’s just got back.”

Vane went to bed rather early and slept heavily. It was unusual for him to take so much wine. But he did not dream of Miss Thomas. In the morning he felt that he had got over it, and he walked down-town to his office. It was a clear winter’s day, sharp and bright. They were closing up the banking accounts for the year, and he worked hard all the morning. He might now call himself very rich. He was an infinitely better match than Ten Eyck. She must have loved him all along—from the very beginning, thought he. He was very indignant with her. But in the afternoon, even this feeling seemed to grow less strong. She was a woman, after all. He could not blame her. He had been angry last night, but now he felt that he could understand her. He almost liked her the better for it. She had been true to herself and her first love. He might have wished the same thing himself. Vane almost felt a pride in his discovery of her nature. He had called her a woman from the beginning. It was the fashion to decry American girls. She was different from a girl. She was a true woman—a woman like Cleopatra or like Helen. Had he first won her, she would have been true to him. He argued savagely with himself, defending her.

He worked rapidly, and by noon the accounts were done. It was Christmas Eve. Toward evening the sky became gray, with flakes of snow in the air. Vane walked up to Central Park, and returned to dress for dinner. Where was he to dine? The club was the best place to meet people. His lodgings were dark, and he had some difficulty in finding a match; then he dropped one of his shirt studs on the floor and had to grope for it. Another one broke, and he threw open the drawer of his shaving-stand, impatiently, to find one to replace it. Lying in the drawer was an old revolver he had brought back from Minnesota two years before. He took it out, placed the muzzle at his chest, and drew the trigger. As he fell on the floor, he turned once over upon his side, holding up his hands before his eyes.

So John ended his story. Of course he told it much less elaborately, that evening in the club, than I have written it here. I suppose I have told it more as if I were a novelist, trying to write a story. John gave the facts briefly; but he described Vane’s character pretty carefully, even to his thoughts, as he had known the man so intimately. Most of these descriptions I have tried to reproduce. And he ended the story as I have ended it, even to the very words. It was a story six years old when he told it to us; the man was forgotten, and the girl was married. His suicide was at first ascribed to financial difficulties, and the excitement soon subsided when his banking accounts were shown to be correct.

I do not remember that there was very much said when John got through. It was very late at night; most of the men were sleepy and we all had to be down-town early in the morning. There was, indeed, a silence for some time.

Finally the Major drew a long breath. “Well,” said he, “my opinion remains the same.”

“And mine.” “And mine,” chimed in voices.

“The man was a fool,” said Schuyler, simply.

“It was cowardly to shoot himself,” said Daisy Blake.

“And to shoot himself for a girl!” cried Schuyler. “Just think what a fellow may do with fifty thousand a year!”

“She was a woman,” said John.

“Was she a woman? that is just the question,” said the Major.

“The question,” said another man, who had not yet spoken, “is whether he really loved Baby Thomas—or the English girl, after all.” This was a new view of the case; and a moment’s silence followed.

“No man, to see Mrs. Malgam now, would think a fellow had shot himself for her,” said another.

“How does she come to be Mrs. Malgam?”

“Oh, Malgam is her second husband,” said Blake. “She has grown tremendously fat.”

“Well, good-night,” said the Major, rising.

“Speaking of fifty thousand a year, how much did Vane really leave?” said Schuyler to John.

“A million and a half, I believe.”

“Whew!” said Schuyler; “I had no idea of that.”

“The granger roads dropped half a point, when his death was known,” said the Major, putting on his coat.

THE END.