The Hollow of Her Hand
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George Barr McCutcheon >> The Hollow of Her Hand
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"Wait!" cried the other. The girl turned to her once more. "Is--is
it a matter of life or death?"
There was a long silence. "Yes. I must find my way there. It
is--death."
Sara Wrandall laid her heavily gloved hand on the slim fingers that
touched the tire.
"Listen to me," she said, a shrill note of resolve ringing in her
voice. "I am going to New York. Won't you let me take you with me?"
The girl drew back, wonder and apprehension struggling for the
mastery of her eyes.
"But I am bound the other way. To the inn. I must go on."
"Come with me," said Sara Wrandall firmly. "You must not go back
there. I know what has happened there. Come! I will take care of
you. You must not go to the inn."
"You know?" faltered the girl.
"Yes. You poor thing!" There was infinite pity in her voice.
The girl laid her head on her arms.
Mrs. Wrandall sat above her, looking down, held mute by warring
emotions. The impossible had come to pass. The girl for whom the
whole world would be searching in a day or two, had stepped out
of the unknown and, by the most whimsical jest of fate, into the
custody of the one person most interested of all in that self-same
world. It was unbelievable. She wondered if it were not a dream,
or the hallucination of an overwrought mind. Spurred by the sudden
doubt as to the reality of the object before her, she stretched
out her hand and touched the girl's shoulder.
Instantly she looked up. Her fingers sought the friendly hand and
clasped it tightly.
"Oh, if you will only take me to the city with you! If you only
give me the chance," she cried hoarsely. "I don't know what impulse
was driving me back there. I only know I could not help myself.
You really mean it? You WILL take me with you?"
"Yes. Don't be afraid. Come! Get in," said the woman in the car
rapidly. "You--you are real?"
The girl did not hear the strange question. She was hurrying around
to the opposite side of the car. As she crossed before the lamps,
Mrs. Wrandall noticed with dulled interest that her garments were
covered with mud; her small, comely hat was in sad disorder; loose
wisps of hair fluttered with the unsightly veil. Her hands, she
recalled, were clad in thin suede gloves. She would be half-frozen.
She had been out in all this terrible weather,--perhaps since the
hour of her flight from the inn.
The odd feeling of pity grew stronger within her. She made no
effort to analyse it, nor to account for it. Why should she pity
the slayer of her husband? It was a question unasked, unconsidered.
Afterwards she was to recall this hour and its strange impulses,
and to realise that it was not pity, but mercy that moved her to
do the extraordinary thing that followed.
Trembling all over, her teeth chattering, her breath coming in
short little moans, the girl struggled up beside her and fell back
in the seat. Without a word, Sara Wrandall drew the great buffalo
robe over her and tucked it in about her feet and legs and far up
about her body, which had slumped down in the seat.
"You are very, very good," chattered the girl, almost inaudibly.
"I shall never forget--" She did not complete the sentence, but
sat upright and fixed her gaze on her companion's face. "You--you
are not doing this just to turn me over to--to the police? They
must be searching for me. You are not going to give me up to them,
are you? There will be a reward I--"
"There is no reward," said Sara Wrandall sharply. "I do not mean to
give you up. I am simply giving you a chance to get away. I have
always felt sorry for the fox when the time for the kill drew near.
That's the way I feel."
"Oh, thank you! Thank you! But what am I saying? Why should I permit
you to do this for me? I meant to go back there and have it over
with. I know I can't escape. It will have to come, it is bound to
come. Why put it off? Let them take me, let them do what they will
with me. I--"
"Hush! We'll see. First of all, understand me: I shall not turn you
over to the police. I will give you the chance. I will help you.
I can do no more than that."
"But why should you help me? I--I--Oh, I can't let you do it! You
do not understand. I--have--committed--a--terrible--" she broke
off with a groan.
"I understand," said the other, something like grimness in her level
tones. "I have been tempted more than once myself." The enigmatic
remark made no impression on the listener.
"I wonder how long ago it was that it all happened," muttered the
girl, as if to herself. "It seems ages,--oh, such ages."
"Where have you been hiding since last night?" asked Mrs. Wrandall,
throwing in the clutch. The car started forward with a jerk, kicking
up the snow behind it.
"Was it only last night? Oh, I've been--" The thought of her
sufferings from exposure and dread was too much for the wretched
creature. She broke out in a soft wail.
"You've been out in all this weather?" demanded the other.
"I lost my way. In the hills back there. I don't know where I was."
"Had you no place of shelter?"
"Where could I seek shelter? I spent the day in the cellar of a
farmer's house. He didn't know I was there. I have had no food."
"Why did you kill that man?"
"There was nothing left for me to do but that."
"And why did you rob him?"
"Ah, I had ample time to think of all that. You may tell the
officers they will find everything hidden in that farmhouse cellar.
God knows I did not want them. I am not a thief. I'm not so bad as
that."
Mrs. Wrandall marvelled. "Not so bad as that!" And she was a
murderess, a wanton!
"You are hungry? You must be famished."
"No, I am not hungry. I have not thought of food." She said it in
such a way that the other knew what her whole mind had been given
over to since the night before.
A fresh impulse seized her. "You shall have food and a place where
you can sleep--and rest," she said. "Now please don't say anything
more. I do not want to know too much. The least you say to-night,
the better for--for both of us."
With that she devoted all of her attention to the car, increasing
the speed considerably. Far ahead she could see twinkling, will-o'-the-wisp
lights, the first signs of thickly populated districts. They were
still eight or ten miles from the outskirts of the city and the
way was arduous. She was conscious of a sudden feeling of fatigue.
The chill of the night seemed to have made itself felt with abrupt,
almost stupefying force. She wondered if she could keep her strength,
her courage,--her nerves.
The girl was English. Mrs. Wrandall was convinced of the fact almost
immediately. Unmistakably English and apparently of the cultivated
type. In fact, the peculiarities of speech that determines the London
show-girl or music-hall character were wholly lacking. Her voice,
her manner, even under such trying conditions, were characteristic
of the English woman of cultivation. Despite the dreadful strain
under which she laboured, there were evidences of that curious
serenity which marks the English woman of the better classes: an
inborn composure, a calm orderliness of the emotions. Mrs. Wrandall
was conscious of a sense of surprise, of a wonder that increased as
her thoughts resolved themselves into something less chaotic than
they were at the time of contact with this visible condition.
For a mile or more, she sent the car along with reckless disregard
for comfort or safety. Her mind was groping for something tangible
in the way of intentions. What was she to do with this creature?
What was to become of her? At what street corner should she turn
her adrift? The idea of handing her over to the police did not
enter her thoughts for an instant. Somehow she felt that the girl
was a stranger to the city. She could not explain the feeling, yet
it was with her and very persistent. Of course, there was a home
of some sort, or lodgings, or friends, but would the girl dare show
herself in familiar haunts?
She had said to the sheriff that she hoped the slayer of her husband
would never be caught. She recalled her words, and she remembered how
sincere she had been in uttering them. But she had not figured on
herself as an instrument in furthering the hope to the point of actual
realisation. What could be more incongruous, more theatric,--yes,
more bizarre, than her attitude at this moment? It seemed impossible
that this shrinking, inert heap at her side was a living thing; a
woman who had slain a fellow creature, and that creature the man
who had been her husband for six years. It seemed utterly beyond
sense or reason that she should be helping this murderess to escape,
that she should be showing her the slightest sign of mercy. And
yet, it was all true. She was helping her, she was befriending her.
She found herself wondering why the poor wretch had not made way
with herself. Escape seemed out of the question. That must have been
clear to her from the beginning, else why was she going back there
to give herself up? What better way out of it all than self-destruction?
Sara Wrandall reached a sudden conclusion. She would advise the girl
to leave the car when they reached the centre of a certain bridge
that spanned the river! No one would find her...
Even as the thought took shape in her mind, she experienced a great
sense of awe, so overwhelming that she cried out with the horror
of it. She turned her head for a quick glance at the mute, wretched
face showing white above the robe, and her heart ached with sudden
pity for her. The thought of that slender, alive thing going down
to the icy waters--her soul turned sick with the dread of it!
In that instant, Sara Wrandall--no philanthropist, no sentimentalist--made
up her mind to give this erring one more than an even chance for
salvation. She would see her safely across THAT bridge and many
others. God had directed the footsteps of this girl so that she
should fall in with the one best qualified to pass judgment on
her. It was in that person's power to save her or destroy her. The
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," took on a broader meaning as
she considered the power that was hers: the power to kill.
Back of all these finely human impulses was the mysterious arbiter
that makes great decisions for all of us, from which there can be
no appeal, and which brooks no argument: Self. Self it was that
put a single question to her and answered it as well: what personal
grievance had she against this unhappy girl? None whatever. Self it
was therefore that slyly thanked her for an unspeakable blessing:
she had brought to an end not only the life of her husband but the
false position she herself had been obliged to maintain through a
mistaken sense of duty and self-respect. And who was to say, outside
the law, that this frail girl had not just cause to slay?
A great relaxation came over Sara Wrandall. It was as if every
nerve, every muscle in her body had reached the snapping point
and suddenly had given way. For a moment her hands were weak and
powerless; her head fell forward. In an instant she conquered,--but
only partially,--the strange feeling of lassitude. Then she realised
how tired she was, how fiercely the strain had told on her body
and brain, how much she had really suffered.
Her blurred eyes turned once more for a look at the girl, who
sat there, just as she had been sitting for miles, her white face
standing out with almost unnatural clearness, and as rigid as that
of the sphinx.
The girl spoke. "Do they hang women in this country?"
Mrs. Wrandall started. "In some of the States," she replied, and
was unable to account for the swift impulse to evade.
"But in this State?" persisted the other, almost without a movement
of the lips.
"They send them to the electric chair--sometimes," said Mrs.
Wrandall.
There was a long silence between them, broken finally by the girl.
"You have been very kind to me, madam. I have no means of expressing
my gratitude. I can only say that I shall bless you to my dying
hour. May I trouble you to set me down at the bridge? I remember
crossing one. I shall be able to--"
"No!" cried Mrs. Wrandall shrilly, divining the other's intention
at once. "You shall not do that. I too thought of that as a way out
of it for you, but--no, it must not be that. Give me a few minutes
to think. I will find a way."
The girl turned toward her. Her eyes were burning.
"Do you mean that you will help me to get away?" she cried, slowly,
incredulously.
"Let me think!"
"You will lay yourself liable--"
"Let me think, I say."
"But I mean to surrender myself to--"
"An hour ago you meant to do it, but what were you thinking of ten
minutes ago? Not surrender. You were thinking of the bridge. Listen
to me now: I am sure that I can save you. I do not know all the--all
the circumstances connected with your association with--with that
man back there at the inn. Twenty-four hours passed before they
were able to identify him. It is not unlikely that to-morrow may
put them in possession of the name of the woman who went with him
to that place. They do not know it to-night, of that I am positive.
You covered your trail too well. But you must have been seen with
him during the day or the night--"
The other broke in eagerly: "I don't believe any one knows that
I--that I went out there with him. He arranged it very--carefully.
Oh, what a beast he was!" The bitterness of that wail caused the
woman beside her to cry out as if hurt by a sharp, almost unbearable
pain. For an instant she seemed about to lose control of herself.
The car swerved and came dangerously near to leaving the road.
A full minute passed before she could trust herself to speak. Then
it was with a deep hoarseness in her voice.
"You can tell me about it later on, not now. I don't want to hear
it. Tell me, where do you live?"
The girl's manner changed so absolutely that there could be but
one inference: she was acutely suspicious. Her lips tightened and
her figure seemed to stiffen in in the seat.
"Where do you live?" repeated the other sharply.
"Why should I tell you that? I do not know you. You--"
"You are afraid of me?"
"Oh, I don't know what to say, or what to do," came from the lips
of the hunted one. "I have no friends, no one to turn to, no one to
help me. You--you can't be so heartless as to lead me on and then
give me up to--God help me, I--I should not be made to suffer for
what I have done. If you only knew the circumstances. If you only
knew--"
"Stop!" cried the other, in agony.
The girl was bewildered. "You are so strange. I don't understand--"
"We have but two or three miles to go," interrupted Mrs. Wrandall.
"We must think hard and--rapidly. Are you willing to come with me
to my hotel? You will be safe there for the present. To-morrow we
can plan something for the future."
"If I can only find a place to rest for a little while," began the
other.
"I shall be busy all day, you will not be disturbed. But leave the
rest to me. I shall find a way."
It was nearly three o'clock when she brought the car to a stop in
front of a small, exclusive hotel not far from Central Park. The
street was dark and the vestibule was but dimly lighted. No attendant
was in sight.
"Slip into this," commanded Mrs. Wrandall, beginning to divest
herself of her own fur coat. "It will cover your muddy garments. I
am quite warmly dressed. Don't worry. Be quick. For the time being
you are my guest here. You will not be questioned. No one need know
who you are. It will not matter if you look distressed. You have
just heard of the dreadful thing that has happened to me. You--"
"Happened to you?" cried the girl, drawing the coat about her.
"A member of my family has died. They know it in the hotel by this
time. I was called to the death bed--to-night. That is all you will
have to know."
"Oh, I am sorry--"
"Come, let us go in. When we reach my rooms, you may order food and
drink. You must do it, not I. Please try to remember that it is I
who am suffering, not you."
A sleepy night watchman took them up in the elevator. He was not
even interested. Mrs. Wrandall did not speak, but leaned rather
heavily on the arm of her companion. The door had no sooner closed
behind them when the girl collapsed. She sank to the floor in a
heap.
"Get up!" commanded her hostess sharply. This was not the time for
soft, persuasive words. "Get up at once. You are young and strong.
You must show the stuff you are made of now if you ever mean to
show it. I cannot help you if you quail."
The girl looked up piteously, and then struggled to her feet. She
stood before her protectress, weaving like a frail reed in the
wind, pallid to the lips.
"I beg your pardon," she murmured. "I will not give way like that
again. I dare say I'm faint. I have had no food, no rest--but never
mind that now. Tell me what I am to do. I will try to obey."
"First of all, get out of those muddy, frozen things you have on."
Mrs. Wrandall herself moved stiffly and with unsteady limbs as
she began to remove her own outer garments. The girl mechanically
followed her example. She was a pitiable object in the strong
light of the electrolier. Muddy from head to foot, water-stained
and bedraggled, her face streaked with dirt, she was the most
unattractive creature one could well imagine.
These women, so strangely thrown together by Fate, maintained
an unbroken silence during the long, fumbling process of partial
disrobing. They scarcely looked at one another, and yet they were
acutely conscious of the interest each felt in the other. The
grateful warmth of the room, the abrupt transition from gloom and
cheerlessness to comfortable obscurity, had a more pronounced effect
on the stranger than on her hostess.
"It is good to feel warm once more," she said, an odd timidness in
her manner. "You are very good to me."
They were in Mrs. Wrandall's bed-chamber, just off the little
sitting-room. Three or four trunks stood against the walls.
"I dismissed my maid on landing. She robbed me," said Mrs. Wrandall,
voicing the relief that was uppermost in her mind. She opened a
closet door and took out a thick eider-down robe, which she tossed
across a chair. "Now call up the office and say that you are speaking
for me. Say to them that I must have something to eat, no matter
what the hour may be. I will get out some clean underwear for you,
and--Oh, yes; if they ask about me, say that I am cold and ill.
That is sufficient. Here is the bath. Please be as quick about it
as possible."
Moving as if in a dream, the girl did as she was told. Twenty minutes
later there was a knock at the door. A waiter appeared with a tray
and service table. He found Mrs. Wrandall lying back in a chair,
attended by a slender young woman in a pink eiderdown dressing-gown,
who gave hesitating directions to him. Then he was dismissed with
a handsome tip, produced by the same young woman.
"You are not to return for these things," she said as he went out.
In silence she ate and drank, her hostess looking on with gloomy
interest. It was no shock to Mrs. Wrandall to find that the girl,
who was no more than twenty-two or three, possessed unusual beauty.
Her great eyes were blue,--the lovely Irish blue,--her skin was
fair and smooth, her features regular and of the delicate mould
that defines the well-bred gentlewoman at a glance. Her hair, now
in order, was dark and thick and lay softly about her small ears
and neck. She was not surprised, I repeat, for she had never known
Challis Wrandall to show interest in any but the most attractive
of her sex. She found herself smiling bitterly as she looked.
To herself she was saying: "It isn't so hard to bear when I realise
that he betrayed me for one who is so much more beautiful than I.
He loved me because I am beautiful. His every defection proves it.
The others have all been beautiful. And to think that this gentle,
slender creature should have been the one to give him his death-blow.
It seems incredible. If it had been struck by some outraged husband,
strong of arm and fierce with vengeance, I could understand. But--but
this young, pretty, soft-eyed thing!"
But who may know the thoughts of the other occupant of that little
sitting-room? Who can put herself in the place of that despairing,
hunted creature who knew that blood was on the hands with which
she ate, and whose eyes were filled with visions of the death-chair?
So great was her fatigue that long before she finished the meal her
tired lids began to droop, her head to nod in spasmodic surrenders
to an overpowering desire for sleep. Suddenly she dropped the fork
from her fingers and sank back in the comfortable chair, her head
resting against the soft, upholstered back. Her lids fell, her hands
dropped to the arms of the chair. A fine line appeared between her
dark eyebrows,--indicative of pain.
For many minutes Sara Wrandall watched the haggardness deepen in
the face of the unconscious sleeper. Then, even as she wondered
at the act, she went over and took up one of the slim hands in her
own. The hand of an aristocrat! It lay limp in hers, and helpless.
Long, tapering fingers and delicately pink with the return of
warmth.
Rousing herself from the mute contemplation of her charge, she shook
the girl's shoulder. Instantly she was awake and staring, alarm in
her dazed, bewildered eyes.
"You must go to bed," said Mrs. Wrandall quietly. "Don't be afraid.
No one will think of coming here."
The girl arose. As she stood before her benefactress, she heard
her murmur as if from afar-off: "Just about your size and figure,"
and wondered not a little.
"You may sleep late. I have many things to do and you will not be
disturbed. Come, take off your clothes and get into my bed. To-morrow
we will plan further--"
"But, madam," cried the girl, "I cannot take your bed. Where are
you to--"
"If I feel like lying down, I shall lie there beside you."
The girl stared. "Lie beside ME?"
"Yes. Oh, I am not afraid of you, child. You are not a monster.
You are just a poor, tired--"
"Oh, please don't! Please!" cried the other, tears rushing to her
eyes. She raised Mrs. Wrandall's hand to her lips and covered it
with kisses.
Long after she went to sleep, Sara Wrandall stood beside the bed,
looking down at the pain-stricken face, and tried to solve the
problem that suddenly had become a part of her very existence.
"It is not friendship," she argued fiercely. "It is not charity,
it is not humanity. It's the debt I owe, that's all. She did the
thing for me that I could not have done myself because I loved him.
I owe her something for that."
Later on she turned her attention to the trunks. Her decision was
made. With ruthless hands she dragged gown after gown from the
"innovations" and cast them over chairs, on the floor, across the
foot of the bed: smart things from Paris and Vienna; ball gowns,
street gowns, tea gowns, lingerie, blouses, hats, gloves and all
of the countless things that a woman of fashion and means indulges
herself in when she goes abroad for that purpose and no other to
speak of. From the closets she drew forth New York "tailor-suits"
and other garments.
Until long after six o'clock she busied herself over this huge
pile of costly raiment, portions of which she had worn but once or
twice, some not at all, selecting certain dresses, hats, stockings,
etc., each of which she laid carelessly aside: an imposing pile of
many hues, all bright and gay and glittering. In another heap she
laid the sombre things of black: a meagre assortment as compared
to the other.
Then she stood back and surveyed the two heaps with tired eyes, a
curious, almost scornful smile on her lips. "There!" she said with
a sigh. "The black pile is mine, the gay pile is yours," she went
on, turning toward the sleeping girl. "What a travesty!"
Then she gathered up the soiled garments her charge had worn and
cast them into the bottom of a trunk, which she locked. Laying out
a carefully selected assortment of her own garments for the girl's
use when she arose, Mrs. Wrandall sat down beside the bed and
waited, knowing that sleep would not come to her.
CHAPTER III
HETTY CASTLETON
At half-past six she went to the telephone and called for the morning
newspapers. At the same time she asked that a couple of district
messenger boys be sent to her room with the least possible delay.
The hushed, scared voice of the telephone girl downstairs convinced
her that news of the tragedy was abroad; she could imagine the girl
looking at the headlines with awed eyes even as she responded to
the call from room 416, and her shudder as she realised that it
was the wife of the dead man speaking.
One of the night clerks, pale and agitated, came up with the papers.
He inquired if there was anything he could do. He tried to tell
her that it was a dreadful, sickening thing, but the words stuck
in his throat. She stood before him, holding the door open; the
light in the hall fell upon her white, haggard face. He began to
tremble all over, as if with the ague.
"Will you be good enough to come in?" she inquired, quite steadily.
"The newspapers--have they printed the--the details?"
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