University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
DEATH.

MRS. PLAUSABY grew more feeble. Her
remorse and her feeling of the dire necessity
for confessing her sin had sustained her hitherto.
But now her duty was done, she had no longer
any mental stimulant. In spite of Isa's devoted
and ingenious kindness, the sensitive vanity of Mrs. Plausaby
detected in every motion evidence that Isa thought of her as a
thief. She somehow got a notion that Mrs. Ferret knew all
about it also, and from her and Mr. Lurton she half-hid her face
in the cover. Lurton, perceiving that his mission to Mrs.
Plausaby was ended, returned home, intending to see Isabel
when circumstances should be more favorable. But the Ferret
kept sniffing round after a secret which she knew lay not far
away. Mrs. Plausaby having suddenly grown worse, Isa determined
to sit by her during the night, but Plausaby strenuously
objected that this was unnecessary. The poor woman
secretly besought Isa not to leave her alone with Plausaby, and
Isabel positively refused to go away from her bedside. For
the first time Mr. Plausaby spoke harshly to Isa, and for the
first time Isabel treated him with a savage neglect. A housekeeper's
authority is generally supreme in the house, and Isa

had gradually come to be the housekeeper. She sat stubbornly
by the dying woman during the whole night.

Mr. Plausaby had his course distinctly marked out. In the
morning he watched anxiously for the arrival of his trusted
lawyer, Mr. Conger. The property which he had married with
his wife, and which she had derived from Albert's father, had
all been made over to her again to save it from Plausaby's
rather eager creditors. He had spent the preceding day at
Perritaut, whither Mr. Conger had gone to appear in a case as
counsel for Plausaby, for the county-seat had recently returned
to its old abode. Mr. Plausaby intended to have his wife make
some kind of a will that would give him control of the property
and yet keep it under shelter. By what legal fencing this was
to be done nobody knows, but it has been often surmised that
Mrs. Plausaby was to leave it to her husband in trust for the
Metropolisville University. Mr. Plausaby had already acquired
experience in the management of trust funds, in the matter of
Isa's patrimony, and it would not be a feat beyond his ability
for him to own his wife's bequest and not to own it at the
same time. This was the easier that territorial codes are generally
made for the benefit of absconding debtors. He had
made many fair promises about a final transfer of this property
to Albert and Katy when they should both be of age, but all
that was now forgotten, as it was intended to be.

Mr. Plausaby was nervous. His easy, self-possessed manner
had departed, and that impenetrable coat of mail being now
broken up, he shuddered whenever the honest, indignant eyes of
Miss Marlay looked at him. He longed for the presence of the
bustling, energetic man of law, to keep him in countenance.

When the lawyer came, he and Plausaby were closeted for

half an hour. Then Plausaby, Esq., took a walk, and the
attorney requested an interview with Isabel. She came in, stiff,
cold, and self-possessed.

“Miss Marlay,” said the lawyer, smiling a little as became a
man asking a favor from a lady, and yet looking out at Isa in a
penetrating way from beneath shadowing eyebrows, “will you
have the goodness to tell me the nature of the paper that Mrs.
Plausaby signed yesterday?”

“Did Mrs. Plausaby sign a paper yesterday?” asked Isabel
diplomatically.

“I have information to that effect. Will you tell me
whether that paper was of the nature of a will or deed or—in
short, what was its character?”

“I will not tell you anything about it. It is Mrs. Plausaby's
secret. I suppose you get your information from Mrs. Ferret.
If she chooses to tell you the contents, she may.”

“You are a little sharp, Miss Marlay. I understand that
Mrs. Ferret does not know the contents of that paper. As the
confidential legal adviser of Mr. Plausaby and of Mrs. Plausaby,
I have a right to ask what the contents of that paper were.”

“As the confidential legal adviser—” Isa stopped and
stammered. She was about to retort that as confidential legal
adviser to Mrs. Plausaby he might ask that lady herself, but she
was afraid of his doing that very thing; so she stopped short
and, because she was confused, grew a little angry, and told
Mr. Conger that he had no right to ask any questions, and then
got up and disdainfully walked out of the room. And the
lawyer, left alone, meditated that women had a way, when they
were likely to be defeated, of getting angry, or pretending
to get angry. And you never could do anything with a

woman when she was angry. Or, as Conger framed it in his
mind, a mad dog was easier to handle than a mad woman.

As the paper signed the day before could not have been
legally executed, Plausaby and his lawyer guessed very readily
that it probably did not relate to property. The next step
was an easy one to the client if not to the lawyer. It must
relate to the crime—it was a solution of the mystery. Plausaby
knew well enough that a confession had been made to
Lurton, but he had not suspected that Isabel would go so far
as to put it into writing. The best that could be done was
to have Conger frame a counter-declaration that her confession
had been signed under a misapprehension—had been obtained
by coercion, over-persuasion, and so forth. Plausaby
knew that his wife would sign anything if he could present
the matter to her alone. But, to get rid of Isabel Marlay?

A very coward now in the presence of Isa, he sent the lawyer
ahead, while he followed close behind.

“Miss Marlay,” said Mr. Conger, smiling blandly but speaking
with decision, “it will be necessary for me to speak to
Mrs. Plausaby for a few minutes alone.”

It is curious what an effect a tone of authority has. Isa
rose and would have gone out, but Mrs. Plausaby said, “Don't
leave me, don't leave me, Isa; they want to arrest me, I believe.”

Seeing her advantage, Miss Marlay said, “Mrs. Plausaby
wishes me to stay.”

It was in vain that the lawyer insisted. It was in vain
that Mr. Plausaby stepped forward and told Mrs. Plausaby to
ask Isabel to leave the room a minute. The sick woman

only drew the cover over her eyes and held fast to Isabel's
hand and said: “No, no, don't go—Isa, don't go.”

“I will not go till you ask me,” said Isa.

At last, however, Plausaby pushed himself close to his
wife and said something in her ear. She turned pale, and
when he asked if she wished Isabel to go she nodded her head.

“But I won't go at all now,” said Isa stubbornly, “unless
you will go out of the room first. Then, if Mrs. Plausaby
tells me that she wishes to see you and this gentleman without
my presence I shall go.”

Mr. Plausaby drew the attorney into one corner of the
room for consultation. Nothing but the desperateness of his
position and the energetic advice of Mr. Conger could have
induced him to take the course which he now decided upon,
for force was not a common resort with him, and with all his
faults, he was a man of much kindness of heart.

“Isa,” he said, “I have always been a father to you. Now
you are conspiring against me. If you do not go out, I shall
be under the painful necessity of putting you out, gently, but
by main strength.” The old smile was on his face. He seized
her arms, and Isa, seeing how useless resistance would be, and
how much harm excitement might do to the patient, rose to go.
But at that moment, happening to look toward the bed, she
cried out, “Mrs. Plausaby is dying!” and she would not have
been a woman if she could have helped adding, “See what you
have done, now!”

There was nothing Mr. Plausaby wanted less than that his
wife should die at this inconvenient moment. He ran off for the
doctor, but poor, weak Mrs. Plausaby was past signing wills or
recantations.

The next day she died.

And Isa wrote to Albert:

The intelligence of his mother's death caused Albert a real
sorrow. And yet he could hardly regret it. Charlton was
not conscious of anything but a filial grief. But the feeling
of relief modified his sorrow.

The letter filled him with a hope of pardon. Now that he

could without danger to his mother seek release from an unjust
incarceration, he became eager to get out. The possibility of release
made every hour of confinement intolerable.

He experienced a certain dissatisfaction with Isa's letter. She
had always since his imprisonment taken pains to write cordially.
He had been “Dear Mr. Charlton,” or “My Dear Mr. Charlton,”
and sometimes even “My Dear Friend.” Isa was anxious that
he should not feel any coldness in her letters. Now that he was
about to be released and would naturally feel grateful to her, the
case was very different. But Albert could not see why she should
be so friendly with him when she had every reason to believe
him guilty, and now that she knew him innocent should freeze
him with a stranger-like coolness. He had resolved to care
nothing for her, and yet here he was anxious for some sign that
she cared for him.

Albert wrote in reply:

This letter set Isabel's mind in a whirl of emotions. She sincerely
admired Lurton, but she had never thought of him as a
lover. Albert's gratitude and praises would have made her
happy, but his confidence that she would marry Lurton vexed
her. And yet the thought that Lurton might love her made it
hard to keep from dreaming of a new future, brighter than any
she had supposed possible to her.