 | CHAPTER LI.
WILL SHE ESCAPE? The Wetherel affair |  |
51. CHAPTER LI.
WILL SHE ESCAPE?
Mrs. Dinneford's lively trust in Providence was not misplaced, nor her
interpretation of its immediate purposes erroneous.
Detective Sweet had really been summoned away from his ambuscade in
front of the tenement house, and in fact Lehming caught a rear view of him,
trudging in disguise, and through indirect streets, toward the Tombs. Of
course this was an emboldening spectacle; nothing heartens even a brave soldier
like seeing the enemy in full retreat; and this excellent young man with
a guilty conscience greatly needed cheering. He did not, however, neglect
any precaution against discovery. He halted his hack in the back alley, and
manœuvred Mrs. Dinneford through the grocery and the courtyard, precisely
as if Sweet were still at his post.
“Dear me, Walter! one might think we were doing something wrong,”
whispered that lady, with the adorable simplicity of a worthy soul which is accustomed
to judge its actions by its motives.
Lehming envied her uninstructed conscience, and marvelled over it. He
had told her repeatedly that this thing which they were doing was illegal and
perilous, without apparently gaining a spark of credence or rousing a throb of
fear. She knew that she was right because her heart blazed up with love, pity,
and other praiseworthy emotions, diffusing such a thick smoke of sweet incense
that she could not see the solemn, inquisitorial figures of law and justice.
Without pausing to reason further with so convinced a spirit, Lehming
led the way into the grim old tenement and panted up the long stairways.
The door of his study was open, but the room was empty.
“I will place you in this ambush,” he said to Mrs. Dinneford, pointing out
the closet which had once sheltered Nestoria from Edward Wetherel. “Then
I will bring her in here and you shall step out upon her. It is dreadful and
most degrading,” he added with a groan, “to be obliged to resort to such deceptions.”
“Dreadful?” stared the worthy woman. “Why, Walter, it is all for the
best, I am sure.” And then, without further unnecessary justification of righteousness,
she rustled into the closet and seated herself cosily in the time-worn
chair which still stood there. Falstaff, taking refuge behind the arras from
his creditors, and snoring the snore of the upright, carried with him no quieter
conscience.
Lehming now went out softly, as wicked men are fallaciously supposed to
walk, and as good men do walk when they are doubtful of their courses. He
came to Nestoria's door; there for a moment he paused, pressing his hand
upon that complaining, threatening heart of his; at last he mustered resolution
to tap upon the fateful panel. He heard a chair scrape on the bare floor within,
with compunction how trustfully she would open to him. Next there was the
sound of a bolt slipping back, and then Nestoria stepped briskly out with a
smile.
She was a beautiful object in his eyes, and she would have been beautiful,
I doubt not, in the eyes of any man, or even of any woman. We must remember
her childlike figure, not merely as small but also as plump as childhood,
a figure like a cherub only half grown to be a seraph. This solidly
graceful young woman, notwithstanding months of anxiety, was now in the
richest health. She seemed able yet to endure anything that the youth of
“teens” can endure. Her carnelian face was roseate; her locks of living sunlight
were exuberant; her blue eyes were as clear as gems. There was something
fascinating in her candid manner and in her singularly fearless pose.
She stood square on both feet, her form perfectly erect and her head thrown a
little back. This position was habitual with her, and very naturally so. She
was so much shorter than most people, so much below the stature even of
most women, that she usually had to look up in order to see faces; and furthermore,
it was a characteristic of her confiding and brave nature that she
hardly ever spoke to any one without looking him or her full in the eyes; so
that this little head had learned to take and keep an upright carriage. Such
a bearing would have made a tall woman appear haughty and domineering;
but in this petite creature it only added to her air of innocence, of trustfulness,
of appealing for protection.
“What is it, Mr. Lehming?” she asked in her frank, brief, practical way,
at the same time giving him the confiding smile of an infant.
His heart suddenly faced about and stepped into the paths of sincerity. He
had meant to inveigle the girl unawares into a meeting with Mrs. Dinneford.
But, loving her as he did, he could not look into those trustful eyes and keep
his Jesuitical purpose.
“My dear child, it is a great deal,” he said gently. “I have discovered
that this house is watched—at least so I believe—by a detective. I decided
that you must go otherwheres. The best friend that you have in this whole
land is Mrs. Dinneford. I went to her. She is here, hiding in the closet in
my room, for I am sorry to say that I did mean to deceive you, meaning your
good. She is here to take you away. Will you see her?”
Nestoria turned pale, but her eyes retained their thoughtful composure,
and she seemed entirely self-possessed.
“Have you told her about me?” she whispered. “Have you told her all
that you know?”
“Yes.” he bowed meekly, not even asking forgiveness, he thought himself
so unworthy of it.
She bent her head a moment, just a moment, in meditation; then she
looked up at him with a smile of assent, satisfaction, and pardon. In the next
breath she left him, walked with her usual firm, brisk step toward the study,
entered it, face toward the closet, and said, “Mrs. Dinneford, you may come
out.”
The good lady opened the door of her hiding-place, saw Nestoria smiling
at her, flew to her like a tempest, clasped her in her arms, and cried with joy.
When the two women drew back to look at each other, both their faces were
quivering with emotion and wet with tears, although the younger one had not
uttered a sob.
“Oh, my dear little lost lamb!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford. “How you
have been in the furnace, and the smell of fire is not upon you.”
“I have learned to bear,” sighed Nestoria, her voice shaking a little.
“But do not let us talk of it—at least not now.”
“No; there is no time for it,” struck in Lehming. “Miss Bernard, how
soon can you get away?”
“In five minutes,” she replied.
“Leave the key of your room with me,” he said. “I will see that your
baggage is packed and sent after you.”
“It is all packed but my brushes and colors,” she smiled. “I have lived
packed. In a minute I will bring out my carpet-bag.”
“I am so glad we brought your trunk to New York!” almost whimpered
Mrs. Dinneford, glancing pitifully at the girl's one well-worn dress. “You
will find all your nice things at our house.”
“Come with me while I put on my bonnet and shawl,” nodded Nestoria, as
tranquilly as if she were about to prepare for a quiet promenade in open day.
Mrs. Dinneford followed this strange young heroine into her box of a room,
and looked about it with moist eyes. There was the ugly, hired iron bedstead,
the coarse, hired bedding, a single cherry chair, a small whitewood table, a
washstand almost bald of varnish, no carpet, not a curtain, not a decoration of
any sort, not a knicknack, none of those delicate comforts or small, gracious
objects with which women love to surround themselves. For three months or
so the girl had not expended one penny which had not been absolutely necessary
to her mere existence. A few minute crumbs of sea biscuit on the mantelpiece
showed what had been her nourishment that morning. Mrs. Dinneford
surveyed this confession of poverty, thought of the anxieties and sorrows
under which it had doubtless been endured, and then looked with wonder at
Nestoria's fresh cheeks and vigorous movements.
“What a marvel of health and strength you are!” she murmured with
something like awe.
“Yes,” was the quiet reply. “I have been favored more than I deserve.”
“May the Lord sunder this sea of mystery,” prayed Mrs. Dinneford, “and
lead us all through it in peace, and restore you to your uses in life!”
Instantancously startled and deeply moved by this impulsive petition, Nestoria
for a moment covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud. Immediately
recovering herself, however, she put on her well-worn hat and
coarse shawl, picked up her carpet-bag, and walked into the entry. Lehming
was waiting there, meanwhile looking over the banisters.
“I owe for the rest of the month on the room and furniture,” she said to
him, producing her purse. “Will you take the money?”
“Time presses,” he replied. “I will pay the bills and settle with you
later.”
With that singular frankness which lay at the root of her character, and
which still lived there in spite of months of concealment, she was about to descend
the front stairway.
“Not that way,” called Lehming, at the same time seizing her carpet-bag.
“We must use caution to-day.”
In two minutes more they had reached the back alley, and were driving
rapidly away in their hack, the windows up and curtains drawn. Once Lehming
peeped out and beheld something which showed the value of minutes;
he discovered detective Sweet hurrying back to his post, accompanied by a policeman.
“I fear that a search warrant has been issued,” he said. “Well, we have
the start, and New York is a wilderness, and our police is incapable. No one
has seen us but the coachman. The keeper of the grocery must have been
out.”
“I heard him in his cellar,” remarked Nestoria. “He was just going down
stairs as we entered.”
“We are surely in the right way,” commented Mrs. Dinneford, with honest
though perhaps erroneous thankfulness. “The finger of Providence aids
us at every step. It is a pillar of cloud behind us. But, Walter, what will you
do when they come to you?”
“I shall say to them: There is the room; search it.”
“Oh, how much trouble and perplexity I bring to you!” groaned Nestoria.
“Well, some day—yes, some day—I will speak.”
There was not much said during the drive; they were too anxious to talk
even of their anxieties. Once only Nestoria spoke, saying with a sigh, “Poor
Imogen! She will be lonely, I am afraid. I wish I could have bidden her
good by. What a life!”
“It will end one happy day, one unexpected day,” replied Lehming. “Deliverance,
like calamity, often comes by surprise.”
“Where are we going?” Mrs. Dinneford asked, seeing that they had passed
the street leading to her house.
“To the New Haven railroad station,” explained Lehming. “We must
throw this coachman off the trail.”
On reaching the station (the old one on Twenty-seventh street) they discharged
the hack and entered the station. Lehming bought three tickets to
Boston, showed the ladies into a train which was about starting, helped them
out on the opposite side of the enclosure, led them through the long shed which
opened on Madison avenue, and there took another carriage. Descending from
this at a corner near the Dinneford house, they waited until it had disappeared,
and then walked to their refuge. Entering quietly by means of a pass key,
Nestoria was hurried up stairs to her bedroom, there to find a memento of Sea
Lodge, her trunk.
“Now dress yourself, dear, and don't cry!” exhorted Mrs. Dinneford,
throwing herself into a chair and wiping her eyes. “I know the sight of the
old things will give you a turn. But you must put on some different clothes.
It will be impossible to hide you from the servants, you know; and you must
not look strange to them. They are curious enough when there's nothing to
call for it. By the way, what a providence it was that we changed our help
when we left Brooklyn. If we had kept the old set that Cousin Wetherel
thought so much of, and used to discourse and expound to as though it was a
congregation, we couldn't have brought you here on the spur of the moment.
They would have known you at the first glimpse, they thought so much of you
and mourned so about you. You remember old Sarah, with the loose eyes that
looked as though they had been dropped out and put back again. Well, Sarah
is keeping an intelligence office; she thought she could do better that way,
and it would be easier for her; and I knew it would be easier for me, for she
had got very slatternly. But what am I talking to you about Sarah for?
What's Hecuba to you? as Hamlet says, or something like it. I wonder where
Alice is? I thought surely she would be here, ready to eat you alive. But
perhaps she has run out to buy something that she thinks you will want. Or
perhaps she got frightened about us, we were gone so much longer than we
expected, and went to look for us. You know we women can't sit still when
must jump and scream. But you are different. What a wonder you are, to
be sure, unlocking your trunk with that steady hand! I wish there were more
women like you. The sex might be fit to vote then. Not that I want to vote
any more than I want to whistle. Dear me, what talk this is! How my mind
does canter about, like a colt in a pasture! Do let me help you on with that
pretty—”
At this moment there was a tap at the door, rousing visions of detectives
and policemen.
“Who is it?” demanded Mrs. Dinneford, seizing the key with one hand
and the bolt with the other, as if she really meant to shut out the law.
| CHAPTER LI.
WILL SHE ESCAPE? The Wetherel affair | |