Chapter XIII: Mrs. Dale’s Version of the Story

The terrible words rang in Mabin’s ears as she remained staring at the hard, vindictive face of the elder woman, hardly yet realizing all that the accusation meant.

Mrs. Dale had murdered her own husband! Surely, surely it was not true. She might be vain, frivolous, a coquette; but a murderess! The girl instinctively shook her head.

The gaunt visitor, with an acid and unpleasant smile, sat down on one of the fragile-looking _papier-maché_ chairs, with mother-of-pearl inlaid ornamentation, which dated the furnishing of the room.

“I--I can’t believe it. No, I won’t believe it!” whispered Mabin hoarsely.

“There is no necessity for your doing so,” retorted the other with indifference. “As it is a very unpleasant thing to believe, indeed, I think you are wise to discredit it. And since she has alienated all her old friends, it is fortunate that she can manage to find new ones.”

As the lady spoke, Mabin felt the horror she had experienced melt gradually into pity for the poor little lady whom this hard woman had in her power. And with compassion came resistance.

“Why shouldn’t she have friends?” she asked hotly. “Mrs. Dale is not a hypocrite. She is deeply sorry for what wrong she has done; she never denies that she has done something which has spoiled her life. And I like her better for being able to be happy in spite of it, sometimes, than if she pretended she could never smile again.”

“Well, of course, for such a trifle as the murder of her husband, you could not expect a woman of her light temperament to trouble herself very long!” said the visitor with grim irony.

“I don’t mean that. I know how much she suffers. But look how young she is. How could you expect that she could never be happy for a single moment any more? Doesn’t God forgive us our sins, when we repent truly? And isn’t it by His laws that we can’t be numb to any feeling but one all our lives?”

“You are a very powerful advocate, I am sure! Perhaps if you had had a son whose life had been ruined by this woman’s conduct, you would be less enthusiastic.”

These words startled Mabin, and made her look at the harsh visitor in a new light. And she saw, or fancied she saw, in the handsome but stern features of the old lady, a trace of the worn face of her father’s tenant. She came a step closer, with her eyes intently fixed on the lady’s countenance.

“Are you,” she asked in a whisper, “a relation of Mr. Banks?”

The visitor started, and seemed intensely astonished, and even alarmed, by this question. She made no answer for a few moments, which she passed in deep thought. Then, raising her head, and looking straight into the girl’s eyes, she said calmly:

“And who is Mr. Banks?”

“One of the _old_ friends of Mrs. Dale, who cares for her as much as any new one!” replied Mabin promptly.

The other lady frowned.

“I didn’t want an epigram. I wanted to know who this Mr. Banks was, and where you had met him,” she said tartly.

Mabin, seeing what a strong impression her rash words had made wished she had not uttered them. While she was still wondering how she should get out of her difficulty, with as little harm as possible to Mrs. Dale, a sharply uttered question made her start.

“Has he--has this Mr. Banks met M-M-Mrs. Dale?”

She stammered over the lady’s name, just as Mr. Banks himself had done.

“No,” answered Mabin promptly.

And at this answer the old lady, suddenly breaking down in the intensity of her relief, fell back in her chair and gasped out:

“Thank Heaven!”

Mabin’s thoughts moved quickly. Stirred by the excitement of this interview, she tried to find a way of serving Mrs. Dale; and it occurred to her if this fierce old lady could meet Mr. Banks, he would perhaps be able to tone down her ferocity. After a short pause she asked:

“Would you like to see him?”

“What? Is he here? You told me----”

The old lady was now so much excited and alarmed that she could scarcely gasp out the words.

“He is staying not far from here,” replied Mabin cautiously.

The visitor got up.

“No, I do not wish to see him. I wish to see no one but Mrs. Dale. I cannot understand why she keeps me waiting like this. I have come all the way from Yorkshire to oblige her, at great inconvenience to myself.”

Mabin could not understand it either, knowing as she did that Mrs. Dale had expected her visitor. In the present state of affairs every unlooked-for occurrence assumed a portentous aspect, so that she felt rather alarmed.

“I will go and tell her you are here,” she said.

She was glad to be out of the presence of this terrible woman. And as she ran out into the garden and then dropped into a sedate walk as she passed the drawing-room windows, her heart went out to the old lady’s victim more than it did to that of the young one.

Under the lime-trees, where she had last seen Mrs. Dale, she met Rudolph alone. She greeted him with a white face, and without a smile.

“Where is she--Mrs. Dale?” she then asked at once.

Rudolph, flushing a little at her manner, answered gravely:

“She was sent for to see some one, and went indoors. But then she fainted, and they took her into the dining-room.”

“Thank you. I must go to her.”

Rudolph ran after her as she returned to the house.

“What has happened? You have learned something, found out something. What is it?”

Mabin turned, and he saw that the tears were springing to her eyes.

“I have, oh, I have!” she whispered hoarsely. “But don’t ask me now. I can’t tell you now. I must go to her.”

He did not detain her, and she ran into the house and softly opened the door of the dining-room. Mrs. Dale was lying on the hard horsehair sofa, with her eyes closed. Two of the servants were present, with fans and smelling-salts, and the usual remedies for a fainting-fit.

As usual in the case of a household where there is a skeleton in the cupboard, the servants took sides, and each of the opposing parties was represented on this occasion. For while the housemaid, Annie, was her mistress’ sworn champion, the parlormaid, who also waited on Mrs. Dale, was suspected to be in the pay of the enemy, the old lady now in the drawing-room.

As Mabin entered Mrs. Dale opened her eyes, and sat up.

“I must go, I must go,” she said in a weak and husky voice, as if hardly yet mistress of herself.

“Yes, you shall go, in one minute,” said Mabin. And springing forward with ready kindness and affection in her face, she signed to the servants to leave them together. “Let me do your hair for you; I can do it, I know I can,” she went on gently, touching the beautiful fair hair which had become loose and disordered, and looking with tender compassion into the blue eyes, which seemed to have lost their brilliancy, their bright color.

Mrs. Dale stared with wide-open, dull eyes at the forms of the two servants, as they left the room. Then she turned her head slowly, and looked long at the young girl whose arm was now around her.

“Why are you so kind to me now?” she asked at last in a weak and almost childish voice that went straight to Mabin’s heart. “You were not kind last night!”

The first answer Mabin gave was a slight pressure of the arm upon Mrs. Dale’s shoulder. Then Mabin bent down and whispered in her ear:

“I didn’t know so much then!”

The little slender form in her arm shivered.

“What--what do you know now?” Then recollecting the events which had preceded her own loss of consciousness, she suddenly sprang off the sofa. “I know! I know! That cruel woman told you! I must go to her; oh, I must go!”

“Well, let me do up your dress first.”

And Mrs. Dale then perceived that the upper part of her bodice had been unfastened by the maids, and that her face was still wet from the sprinkling of water they had given her. She submitted to Mabin’s assistance, therefore, in arranging her hair and her dress, without another word being exchanged between them. When she was ready to go, however, she stopped on her way to the door, and gave Mabin one long, curious look. It made the girl spring forward, with a world of sympathy in her eyes.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for you!” she whispered. “So very, very sorry. Much more than before I knew anything.”

Then Mrs. Dale gave way, and seeming for the first time to recover her powers of thought and of speech, she sank down on the nearest chair, and burst into tears, natural, healing tears, while she poured into Mabin’s ears a broken, incoherent confession:

“It is quite true that I did it--did what she told you. But you know, oh, Mabin, you do know how bitterly I have repented it! I would have given my life to have been able to live those few minutes over again! What did she tell you? Tell me, tell me! And how did she say it? Of course she made the very worst of it; but it was bad enough without that. Oh, Mabin, Mabin! Don’t you think she might forgive me now?”

While she talked in this wandering and excited way Mabin hardly knew what to do; whether to try to divert her thoughts, or to let her know in what a vixenish and hard manner the elder woman had made the announcement of the terrible action which had cut short one life and ruined another.

“Of course she ought to forgive you!” she said at last. “But you must not give way to despair if she does not. She is a hard woman; she will never treat you as tenderly as your own friends do.”

She paused, not liking to tell Mrs. Dale that the visitor was waiting for her, and wondering whether her friend had forgotten the fact. As she glanced toward the door, Mrs. Dale caught her eye, and suddenly threw herself upon her knees, burying her head in the girl’s lap.

“Oh, I daren’t, I daren’t go in--just yet!” she whispered almost pleadingly. “I know I sent for her; I know I must see her; but now that the moment has come, I feel as if I could not bear it. I know how she will look--what she will say. And it is upon her, all upon her, that my life, my very life depends!”

Mabin said nothing. She could not help thinking, from the wild words and wilder manner of the wretched woman before her, that the great strain of her crime and her repentance had ended by weakening her mind. Unless----

The girl drew a long breath, frightened by the awful possibility, which had just occurred to her, that the grim visitor in the drawing-room had been threatening Mrs. Dale with the extreme penalty of her crime. Mrs. Dale’s words--“My life depends upon her!” were explicit enough. Instinctively Mabin’s arm closed more tightly round the sobbing woman.

“Hush, hush, dear!” she whispered soothingly. “She will not dare, she will not dare to be more cruel than she has been already! You must try and be brave, and to bear her hard words; but she won’t do anything more than scold you!”

In the midst of her grief Mrs. Dale looked up in the girl’s face with a sad smile.

“Oh, she has dared so much more than that already!” she said hopelessly. “I don’t want to excuse myself--nothing can excuse me--but I want you to know the share she had in it all. For she had a share. It would never have happened but for her.”

Mrs. Dale sprang to her feet, and walking up and down the room with her little white hands clinched till the nails marked her flesh, she began to pour into the young girl’s ears a story which kept her hearer fascinated, spellbound.

“Listen, listen!” said Mrs. Dale in a low, breathless voice, without glancing at the girl. “It is not a story for you; I would never have told you a word of it if it had not been forced upon us both. But now, as you have heard so much, told in one way, you must hear the rest, told in another.”

Mabin said nothing.

In fact, it seemed to her that Mrs. Dale hardly cared whether she listened or not. She went on with her story in the same hurried, monotonous tone, as if it was merely the relief of putting it into words that she wanted:

“I had always been spoiled, always had my own way, until I was married. My father and mother both died when I was a little thing of six, and I lived with my guardian and his family, and they let me do just as I liked. I was supposed to be rich, almost an heiress; but when my guardian died, it was found that the money had all gone; I had nothing. I was not yet eighteen then. And Sir Geoffrey Mallyan wanted to marry me. Every one said I must; that there was nothing else for me to do. I didn’t care for him; but then I didn’t care for any one else; so nobody thought it mattered. It was taken for granted, don’t you see, that there was no question of my saying no.”

Mrs. Dale stopped short, and for the first time looked at Mabin:

“That’s what people always think, that it doesn’t matter whom a girl marries, if she’s very young. But it does, oh, it does! And he had a brother----”

Mabin started, and thought at once of Mr. Banks.

“A younger brother, who had been ordered home from India on sick leave. No, I didn’t care for him,” she went on emphatically, reading the expression of sympathy on the girl’s face. “But he was livelier than his grave brother, my husband, and we were very good friends. Nobody would have thought that there was any harm in that if old Lady Mallyan hadn’t interfered. You can guess now, I suppose, who Lady Mallyan is!”

Mabin nodded emphatically without speaking.

“She came posting to the place to find out the evil which was only in her own mind. We had been getting on quite well together, my husband and I. I was rather afraid of him, but I liked him, and he was kind to me. I believe he was really fond of me; and that I should have grown fond of him. I was fond of him in a way; but he was fifteen years older than I, and very quiet and grave in his manners. But he let me do what I liked, and took me to all the dances and races I wanted, and was proud of me, and seemed pleased that I should enjoy myself. But when his mother came, everything was changed. She had great influence with him, and she told him that he was spoiling me, and making me fit for nothing but amusement, and that these constant gayeties were ruining my character. And so he told me, very gently, very kindly, that I must settle down, and live a quieter life.

“I was sorry, disappointed, and not too grateful to Lady Mallyan. Would you have been? Would anybody have been? But I submitted. There were some scenes first, of course. I had been spoiled; I am bad-tempered, I know; and I was indignant with her for her interference. What harm had I been doing, after all? I was not unhappy, however, and it was easy to reconcile myself to everything but to her. For she seemed to have settled down in my husband’s house, and I did not dare to hint that I resented this. Then things went on smoothly for a time. I had given up my balls, and nearly all what my mother-in-law was pleased to call ‘dissipations.’ But now that I was oftener at home, I naturally saw more of Willie, my husband’s brother, than before, since he was not strong enough to go out so much as Sir Geoffrey and I had done.

“We were all very anxious about him, as he seemed to be on the verge of consumption. He was very bright and amusing, however, even then, and I was certainly more at ease with him than I was with my mother-in-law, or even with my own husband, who was a silent and undemonstrative man. But it was shameful of Lady Mallyan to suspect that I cared more for him than for my husband; it never entered into his head or mine to suppose any one would think such a wicked thing; and certainly Sir Geoffrey would never have thought of such a thing except at the suggestion of his mother.

“I cannot tell you, child, of the wretchedness this miserable old woman brought about, in her jealousy at Sir Geoffrey’s love for me, and her anxiety to get back the influence over him which she thought I had usurped. Of course if I had been an older woman, as old as I am now, for example, I should have rebelled; I should have insisted on her leaving the house where she had brought nothing but misery. I should have known how to take my proper place as mistress of the house in which she was only an interloper.

“But I did not know how to do it, although I knew what I ought to do.

“So it went on, the misery of every one growing greater every day, Willie and I feeling a restraint which made us afraid to exchange a word under her eyes; my husband growing shorter in his manner, more reserved in his speech, having had his mind poisoned against his brother and against me.

“At last a crisis came. Willie told us that he was going away. I knew he was in no fit state to travel, but I did not dare to tell him to stay, or to tell the fears I felt for him. When he was ready to go, I spoke out to him at last. We were in the drawing-room, standing by the fire, and I told him it was his mother who had made us all miserable and afraid to speak to one another, and I begged him to come with me to Sir Geoffrey, and to back me up in telling him the truth, in insisting that Lady Mallyan should leave the house.

“‘If you go away now, without speaking to Geoffrey,’ I said, ‘I shall be left in the power of this hateful, wicked woman for the rest of my life. For she will never leave of her own accord; and I dare not speak to Geoffrey about her with no one to back me up.’

“And then I saw Lady Mallyan’s shadow outside the window on the path. She had been listening, she was always listening; hoping to find out something as we said good-by.

“I ran to the window, but she escaped me. When Willie was gone, I went to look for my husband. He was in the gun-room, looking harder than usual. His mother had just left him. I had never seen him look so stern, and I was frightened. I began to see that I was powerless against the mischievous woman who was spoiling our lives.

“‘Geoffrey!’ I said. ‘What has your mother been saying to you? She has been saying something unkind I know; something untrue, probably. What is it?’

“Then he said something which made me feel as if I had been turned into stone. Lady Mallyan had been with him, had misrepresented my words to Willie, had put a hideous meaning into all we had said. I forget Sir Geoffrey’s exact words; if I remembered them I would not repeat them. But they were cold, full of suspicion. They roused in me a mad feeling of hatred. I can remember that I shook till my dress rustled; that I could not speak. Then--God forgive me! I took up a little pistol--revolver--I don’t know what they call it; but it was something so small it looked like a toy--and, hardly knowing what I did, I pointed it at him, and--and--he cried out, and fell down.

“I don’t know what happened then, whether I shrieked out, or what happened. But they came in, a lot of them, and took me away. And--and I never saw him again. She would not even let me see him when he lay dead. Though I begged, how I begged!”

Suddenly Mrs. Dale stopped in her speech, and crossed quickly to the door. Flinging it open suddenly, she revealed Lady Mallyan, standing within a couple of feet of it, erect, very pale.

Mrs. Dale smiled.

“Come in, pray come in, your ladyship. You have not lost your old habits, I see,” she said with cutting emphasis as she bowed to her visitor.