Books: The Mayor\'s Wife

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Relieved, for the natural good sense of the woman was reasserting
itself, I gave her hands a squeeze and quickly ran back to where
the mayor was holding the door for me.

"She is all right now," I remarked, as I slid by him upstairs; and
that was all I said. The rest must wait a more auspicious moment--
the moment when he really would have time to take up the gage which
Mr. Steele had thrown down to him in his final words.

I was not a witness to the parting interview between Mayor Packard
and his wife; I had stolen into the nursery, for a look at the
little one. I found her sleeping sweetly, with one chubby hand
under her rounded cheek. Thus had she lain and thus had she slept
during all those dreadful minutes, when her future hung, trembling
in the balance.

CHAPTER XXVII

A CHILD'S PLAYTHINGS

I was too much overwhelmed by all these events to close my eyes
that night. The revelation of Mr. Steele's further duplicity,
coming so immediately upon the first, roused fresh surmises and
awakened thoughts which soon set my wits working in a direction as
new as it was unexpected. I had believed my work over in this
house, but as I recalled all the occurrences of the evening and
turned the situation, as it now confronted me, over and over in my
mind, I felt that it had just begun. There must be something in
this latest development to help us in the struggle which lay before
us. The rage which sprang up in him as he confronted his old aunt
at this moment of his triumphant revenge argued a weakness in his
armor which it might yet be my part to discover and reveal. I knew
Mrs. Packard well enough to realize that the serenity into which
she had fallen was a fictitious serenity, and must remain so as
long as any doubt remained of the legality of the tie uniting her
to this handsome fiend. Were the means suggested by the mayor of
promising enough character to accomplish the looked-for end?

I remembered the man's eyes as the mayor let fall his word of
powerful threat, and doubted it. Once recovered from the
indisposition which now weakened him, he would find means to thwart
any attempts made by Mayor Packard to undermine the position he had
taken as the legal husband of Olympia--sufficiently so, at least,
to hinder happiness between the pair whose wedded life he not only
envied but was determined to break up, unless some flaw in his past
could be discovered through Miss Quinlan--the aunt whose goodness
he had slighted and who now seemed to be in a frame of mind to help
our cause if its pitiful aspects were once presented to her. I
resolved to present the case without delay. Morning came at last,
and I refreshed myself as well as I could, and, after a short visit
to Mrs. Packard's bedside during which my purpose grew with every
moment I gazed down on her brave but pitiful face, put on my hat
and jacket and went next door.

I found the two old ladies seated in their state apartment making
calculations. At sight of my face they both rose and the "O my
dear" from Miss Charity and the "God bless you, child," from Miss
Thankful showed that both hearts were yet warm. Gradually I
introduced the topic of their nephew; gradually I approached the
vital question of the disgrace.

The result upset all my growing hopes. He had never told them just
what the disgrace was. They really knew nothing about his life
after his early boyhood. He had come home that one time when
fortune so suddenly smiled upon them and they thought then that he
would tell them something; but the disappointment which had
followed effectually closed his lips, and he went away after a few
days of fruitless search, not to approach them again till just
before he took up the position of secretary to their great
neighbor. Then he paid them one short and peremptory visit, during
which he was able to impress upon them his importance, his reasons
for changing his name, which they could not now remember, and the
great necessity which this made for them not to come near him as
their nephew. They had tried to do what he asked, but it had been
hard. "Charity," Miss Thankful proceeded to bewail with a
forgetfulness of her own share in the matter, "had not been able to
keep her eyes long off the house which held, as she supposed, our
double treasure." So this was all! Nothing to aid me; nothing to
aid Mayor Packard. Rising in my disappointment, I prepared to
leave. I had sufficient self-control and I hope good feeling not
to add to their distress at this time by any unnecessary
revelations of a past they were ignorant of, or the part this
unhappy nephew of theirs had played and still promised to play in
the lives of their immediate neighbors.

Miss Thankful squeezed my hand and Miss Charity gave me a kiss;
then as she saw her sister looking aside, whispered in my ear "I
want to show you something, all of Johnnie's little toys and the
keepsakes he sent us when he was a good boy and loved his aunts.
You will not think so badly of him then."

I let Miss Charity lead me away. A drawer held all these
treasures. I looked and felt to a degree the pathos of the scene;
but did not give special attention to what she thrust under my eyes
till she gave me a little old letter to read, soiled and torn with
the handling of many years and signed John Silverthorn Brainard.
Then something in me woke and I stared at this signature, growing
more and more excited as I realized that this was not the first
time I had seen it, that somewhere and in circumstances which
brought a nameless thrill I had looked upon it before and that--it
was not one remembrance but many which came to me. What the spoken
name had not recalled came at the sight of this written one. Bess!
there was her long and continued watch over the house once entered
by her on any and every pretext, but now shunned by her with a
secret terror which could not disguise her longing and its secret
attraction; her certificate of marriage; the name on this
certificate--the very one I was now staring at--John Silverthorn
Brainard! Had I struck an invaluable clue? Had I, through the
weakness and doting fondness of this poor woman, come upon the one
link which would yet lead us to identify this hollow-hearted, false
and most vindictive man of great affairs with the wandering and
worthless husband of the nondescript Bess, whose hand I had touched
and whose errand I had done, little realizing its purport or the
influence it would have upon our lives? I dared not believe myself
so fortunate; it was much too like a fairy dream for me to rely on
it for a moment; yet the possibility was enough to rouse me to
renewed effort. After we had returned to Miss Thankful's side, I
asked her, with an apology for my inexhaustible curiosity, if she
still felt afraid of the thread and needle woman across the way.

The answer was a little sharp.

"It is Charity who is afraid of her," said she. She had evidently
forgotten her own extravagant words to me on this subject.
"Charity is timid; she thinks because this woman once hung over our
brother, night and day, that she knew about this money and had
persuaded herself that she has some right to it. Charity is
sometimes mistaken, but she has some reason, if it is inadequate,
for this notion of hers. That woman, since her dismissal after my
brother's death, has never really quit this neighborhood. She
worked next door in any capacity she could, whenever any of the
tenants would take her; and when they would not, sewed or served in
the houses near by till finally she set up a shop directly opposite
its very door. But she'll never get these bonds; we shall pay her
what is her due, but she'll never get any more."

"That would make her out a thief," I cried, "or--" but I thought
better of uttering what was in my mind. Instead I asked how they
first came to hear of her.

Miss Charity showed some flustration at this and cast her sister an
appealing look; but Miss Thankful, eying her with some severity,
answered me with becoming candor:

"She was a lodger in this house. We kept a few lodgers in those
days--be still, Charity! Just thank God those days are over."

"A lodger?" I repeated. "Did she ever tell you where she came
from?"

"Yes, she mentioned the place,--it was some town farther west.
That was when we were in such trouble about our brother and how we
should care for him. She could nurse him, she said, and indeed
seemed very eager to do so, and we were glad to let her,--very
glad, till my brother showed such fear of her and of what she might
do if she once got hold of his wallet."

"You possibly did her injustice," I said. "A sick man's fancies
are not always to be relied on. What did your nephew think of her?
Did he share your distrust of her?"

"John? Oh, yes, I believe so. Why do we always come back to the
subject of John? I want to forget him; I mean to forget him; I
mean that Charity shall forget him."

"Let us begin then from this moment," I smiled; then quickly: "You
knew that Bess was a married woman."

"No, we knew nothing about her."

"Not even the name she went by?"

"Oh, that was Brown."

"Brown," I muttered, turning for a second time to go. "You must
think me inquisitive, but if I had not been," I added with a merry
laugh, "I should never have found your bonds for you." Pressing
both their hands in mine I ran hastily out of the room.

At once I crossed the street to Bess' little shop.

CHAPTER XXVIII

RESTITUTION

"Bess, why are you so white? What has happened to you in the last
twenty-four hours? Have you heard from him?"

"No, no; I'm all right." But her eyes, hunted and wandering,
belied her words.

I drew her hands down into mine across the table lying between us.

"I want to help you," I whispered; "I think I can. Something has
happened which gives me great hope; only do me a favor first; show
me, as you promised, the papers which I dug out for you."

A smile, more bitter than any tear, made her face look very hard
for an instant, then she quietly led the way into the small room at
the back. When we were quite alone, she faced me again and putting
her hand to her breast took out the much creased, much crumpled bit
of paper which was her only link to youth, to her life, and to her
love.

"This is all that will interest you," said she, her eyes brimming
in spite of herself. "It is my marriage certificate. The one
thing that proves me an honest woman and the equal of--" she
paused, biting back her words and saying instead--"of any one I
see. My husband was a gentleman."

It was with trembling hands I unfolded the worn sheet. Somehow the
tragedy of the lives my own had touched so nearly for the last few
days had become an essential part of me.

"John Silverthorn Brainard," I read, the name identical with the
one I had just seen as the early signature of the man who claimed
a husband's rights over Mrs. Packard. The date with what anxiety
I looked at it!--preceded by two years that of the time he united
himself to Olympia Brewster. No proof of the utter falsity of his
dishonorable claim could be more complete. As I folded up the
paper and handed it back, Bess noted the change which had come to
me. Panting with excitement she cried:

"You look happy, happy! You know something you have not told me.
What? what? I'm suffocating, mad to know; speak--speak--"

"Your husband is a man not unknown to any of us. You have seen him
constantly. He is--"

"Yes, yes; did he tell you himself? Has he done me so much
justice? Oh, say that his heart has softened at last; that he is
ready to recognize me; that I have not got to find those bonds--but
you do not know about the bonds--nobody does. I shouldn't have
spoken; he would be angry if he knew. Angry? and I have suffered
so much from his anger! He is not a gentle man."

How differently she said this from the gentleman of a few minutes
back!

"But he doesn't know that I am here," she burst out in another
instant, as I hunted for some word to say. "He would kill me if he
did; he once swore that he would kill me if I ever approached him
or put in any claim to him till he was ready to own me for his wife
and give me the place that is due me. Don't tell me that I have
betrayed myself, I've been so careful; kept myself so entirely out
of his eyes, even last night when I saw the doctor go in and felt
that it was for him, and pictured him to myself as dying without a
word from me or a look to help me bear the pain. He was ill,
wasn't he?--but he got better. I saw him come out, very feeble and
uncertain. Not like himself, not like the strong and too, too
handsome man who has wrung my heart in his hand of steel,--wrung it
and thrown it away."

Sobs shook her and she stopped from lack of power to utter either
her terror or her grief. But she looked the questions she could no
longer put, and compassionating her misery, I gently said:

"Your love has been fixed upon a very unstable heart; but you have
rights which must yet insure you his support. There is some one
who will protect these rights and protect you in your efforts to
substantiate them."

"His aunt," she put in, shaking her head. "She can do nothing,
unless--" Her excitement became abnormal. "Have they found the
money?" she shrieked; "have they--have they found the money?"

I could not deceive her; she had seen it in my eye.

"And they will--"

"Hardly," I whispered. "He has displeased them; they can not be
generous to him now."

Her hopes sank as if the very basis of her life had been taken
away.

"It was my only hope," she murmured. "With that money in my hand--
some, any of it, I could have dared his frown and won in a little
while his good will, but now--I can only anticipate rebuff. There
is nothing for me to hope for now. I must continue to be Bess, the
thread and needle woman."

"I did not say that the one to reinstate you was Miss Quinlan."

"Who then? who then?"

"Mayor Packard."

And then I had to tell her.

We all know the results of the election by which Governor Packard
holds his seat, but few persons outside of those mentioned in this
history know why the event of his homecoming from a trip he made to
Minnesota brought a brighter and more lasting light into his wife's
eyes than the news of his astonishing political triumph.

He had substantiated facts by which Mr. Steele's claims upon Mrs.
Packard were annulled and Bess restored to her rights, if not to
her false husband's heart and affections. There are times, though,
when I do not even despair of the latter; constant illness is
producing a perceptible change in the man, and it seemed to me,
from what Mrs. John Brainard told me one day after she had been
able, through the kindness of the Misses Quinlan, to place the
amount of one of the bonds in his hands, that his eyes were
beginning to learn their true lesson and that he would yet find
charm in his long neglected wife. It was not to be wondered at, for
with hope and the advantages of dress with which the Misses Quinlan
now took pleasure in supplying her, she was gradually becoming an
unusually fine woman.

I remained with Mrs. Packard till they left town for the capital;
remained to enjoy to the full the joy of these reunited hearts, and
to receive the substantial reward which they insisted on bestowing
upon me. One of the tasks with which I whiled away the many hours
in which I found myself alone was the understanding and proper
mastery of the cipher which had played such a part in the evolution
of the life-drama enacted before my eyes.

It was very simple. With the following diagram as a key and a
single hint as to its management, you will at once comprehend its
apparent intricacies:

AB | CD | EF \ST/
___|____|___ UV\/WX
GH | IJ | KL /\
___|____|___ /YZ\
MN | OP | QR

The dot designated that the letter used was the second in the
indicated division.

The hint to which I allude is this. With every other word the
paper is turned in the hands toward the left. This alters the
shape and direction of the angle or part of square symbolizing the
several letters, and creates the confusion which interfered with my
solution of its mysteries the night I subjected it, with such
unsatisfactory results, to the tests which had elucidated the
cryptogram in The Gold Bug.

THE END

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